Following the success of the declaration of 2012 and 2025 as International Year of Cooperatives, the United Nations General Assembly has taken a historic step to consolidate the role of cooperativism on the global agenda. In a recently adopted resolution, the international body has proposed establishing a fixed periodicity for this commemoration, celebrating the International Year of Cooperatives every ten years.
With this decision, which sets the next global appointment in 2035, the UN aims to “foster the effective use of the cooperative business model in order to boost social and economic development.”
Institutional recognition of cooperativism
With this movement, cooperativism achieves recognition without parallel in the international economic context, becoming the only business model that has a guaranteed and scheduled global appointment every decade on the United Nations calendar.
This differential fact underlines the growing realization by the international community that the cooperative enterprise is, in addition to being a consolidated economic actor, an indispensable structural piece for sustainable development and the generation of prosperity. By institutionalizing this celebration, the UN sends a clear message to governments regarding the importance of supporting this model.
