Essay On International Cooperative

944 Words4 Pages

A cooperative is an organization formed by a group of people in a society with a mutual motive to deal with their existing socio-economic complications which have its own principle. The International cooperative alliance which is a common and umbrella organization for cooperatives (ICA 1995) defines cooperatives as an autonomous committee of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and works through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. This suggest that cooperatives are firstly voluntary business enterprises or community organization, incorporated in service to its members and users, in order to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs. In addition, the income generated …show more content…

The development, review and analysis of co-operative principles are the important purposes of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) (Birchall, 2005). The cooperative has common values & ethics on which all cooperatives are based; but they may be interpreted by different traditions of cooperatives according to their operating conditions and specific environments. The cooperatives value and principles are the fundamental guidelines and essential tools to run the business transactions are universally accepted by the cooperators all over the world. It has both basic and ethical values prescribed as self-help, self-accountability, democracy, equality, equity, honesty, social responsibility and caring for others. However, it is possible to identify certain common characteristics and features of cooperative organizations though there are typical traits for every type of cooperative. Cooperatives are private sector enterprises set up to meet their members’ needs. They cover a large scale of activities including: agriculture, financial services, manufacturing, transport, utilities, health care and funerals (DFID, 2010). With the development and change of cooperatives’ movement situation, the ICA amended cooperatives principles in

Open Document