Dear fellow co-operators,
It is with the greatest regret that I write to tell you that I have made the decision to retire from the role as President of the International Co-operative Alliance to take effect at the closing of the General Assembly of the Alliance in Antalya, Turkey on the 13th of November this year.
These last six year as President have been the most stimulating and fulfilling of my working life. It has been a great privilege to see first hand the tremendous work of co-operatives across the globe and to meet so many of you and I will always be immensely proud to be a member of this great worldwide movement. Read my retirement announcement on the Alliance’s web site.
In 2009 together we promised radical change. We have made good on that promise and built significant added value for our member co-operatives. We have enhanced our representational role at global level beyond recognition, and now produce annual global statistics for the movement that are used by decision-makers across the world. We have a global strategy: The Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade that has received worldwide recognition, huge membership engagement, and is core to national co-operative strategies in many countries. We have successfully launched a global marque that is already being used in 98 countries.
One of the objectives set out in the Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade is for the co-operative enterprise model to become a recognised leader in sustainability by 2020. Already co-operatives are asserting themselves as sustainability pioneers. In Europe Scandinavian co-operatives have been named among the most sustainable brands. More on this in the eDigest.
Co-operatives now have a voice among global business leaders. This month I joined a delegation of representatives from the Alliance for the B20 meeting at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. The Alliance will be represented again at a B20 conference organised by the Turkish Presidency in September and we will continue to work to have co-operative specific recommendations included.
Dame Pauline Green
President
International Co-operative Alliance