Interview: Alexandra Wilson on CIAG and the Global Consultation on Cooperative Identity

As the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) continues its global consultation on the Cooperative Identity, the Cooperative Identity Advisory Group (CIAG) is helping guide an important reflection across the movement: is the 1995 Statement of the Cooperative Identity still fit for purpose, and if not, how should it evolve?

We spoke with Ms. Alexandra Wilson, Chair of the Cooperative Identity Advisory Group (CIAG) and ICA Board member, about CIAG’s mandate, what the consultation process looks like in practice, and what themes are emerging from cooperators around the world.

For readers meeting CIAG for the first time: What is the Cooperative Identity Advisory Group (CIAG), why was it set up by the ICA Board, and what is your mandate as Chair?
In late 2021, the Board of Directors of the ICA convened a group of cooperative scholars and practitioners from across the ICA’s four regions and multiple sectors and charged it with leading a global consultation on the Cooperative Identity. Since then, the Cooperative Identity Advisory Group has conducted a series of activities aimed at broadening and deepening awareness of our common identity among co-operators around the world and determining whether, three decades after its adoption, the Statement of the Cooperative Identity has stood the test of time. As chair, it is my responsibility to guide the Group’s work and to report its advice to the ICA Board.

What CIAG does (and doesn’t) do: How do you balance being “guides of the process” versus “authors of the outcome”? What decisions are CIAG’s, and what belongs to the wider movement and ICA governance?
The Advisory Group’s role is both to spur a reflection among cooperators and to bring its own knowledge and experience to the task of determining whether changes to the Identity Statement are in order and what else the ICA and its members can do to strengthen the Cooperative Identity. A survey conducted among members of the ICA in 2022 to test their awareness of the Identity Statement and solicit their top-of-mind thoughts about its continuing relevance yielded more than 2,000 responses. Over the course of 2023 and 2024, we held a series of webinars exploring different aspects of our shared identity and encouraged ICA members to conduct “self-guided” consultations within their countries and sectors. Together, these activities produced a rich array of ideas for strengthening the Cooperative Identity. Consistent with its dual mandate—to listen to the members and to conduct its own reflections—the Advisory Group sifted through these ideas and added some of its own to produce a list of 15 recommended actions speaking to how, as a movement, we can better articulate, live, communicate and protect the Cooperative Identity. At a session of the General Assembly in 2024, the ICA’s members adopted all 15 recommendations.

What’s the roadmap from here: Can you walk us through the consultation journey: from survey and sessions, to drafts, to the point where changes could be considered at a World Cooperative Congress?
At the same meeting, the members agreed to hold a Congress at a time and place to be determined by the ICA Board for the purpose of considering possible changes to the Identity Statement. A first draft of a revised statement was shared then by way of pointing to possible changes. The members were not asked to approve the revised Statement. Under the ICA’s statutes, that step can only be taken by formal decision of the General Assembly following a Congress held to discuss the proposals, which Congress must be preceded by a full consultation conducted among the ICA’s members, regions, sectoral organisations and thematic committees.

The required consultation is underway now. It was launched in June with the release of a second discussion draft of a revised Statement of the Cooperative Identity and an invitation to comment before November 30. Forty separate submissions were received. Just as we had hoped, presented with a concrete proposal for revisions to the Statement, cooperators had a lot to say! Some are fully in favour. Just as many stated strongly that no changes to the Identity Statement are needed. The great majority are somewhere in the middle: they would like to see the Statement refreshed but not necessarily or entirely in the way we proposed.

At a meeting to be held January 22-23, the Advisory Group will ponder the feedback received and decide, first, whether, to continue with the initiative to recommend changes to the Statement and, second, if the answer to the first question is yes, what changes to recommend. If the consultation continues, we will draw up a third discussion draft and share it with the members for comment. The process will continue from there, with one or more further discussion drafts released, until we arrive at something reasonably close to a consensus. This process may strike people as long and drawn out. That’s deliberate: the authors of the statute laying out the process for approving Statement changes were concerned both to avoid unnecessary tinkering and to ensure that changes are adopted only after very careful deliberation.

Why revisit the 1995 Statement now: What has changed in the cooperative world (or the world around it) that makes a fresh look at the Statement on the Cooperative Identity necessary?
The 1995 Statement on the Cooperative identity arrived at an important turning point in world affairs, marked by the independence of the remaining European colonies, the end of the Cold War, the rise of neo-Liberal economic policies, the globalization of the world economy and the advent of the new Information Age. These changes in the external environment led to new opportunities and significant challenges for cooperatives, which, together with the further growth of our movement worldwide and the formation of cooperatives in new economic sectors, provided the impetus for a review of the Cooperative Principles that had guided the movement since the nineteen sixties. Thirty years later, we find ourselves at another turning point. A background paper issued ahead of the 33rd World Cooperative Congress, held at the start of the current consultation, identified new forces bearing down on the cooperative movement: the full digitalization of the economy; growing access by girls across the globe to education; women moving to take their rightful place in the productive activities and governance of their societies; younger workers in the advanced economies increasingly finding themselves confined to the insecurity of the so-called gig economy, a status all too familiar to the peoples of the developing economies; a growing distrust of authority and the rise of populist, even reactionary, political movements; an emerging preoccupation with diversity, equity and social inclusion in many countries; accelerating environmental degradation; a looming climate emergency accompanied by the prospect of massive population displacements, particularly in the Global South; and the aging and ultimate shrinking of the population in the developed economies.

If we were drawing up a list today, we would add artificial intelligence, the backlash against so-called “woke” policies; growing international conflict; a slowing or reversal of globalisation; the withdrawal of American support for international development and multilateral institutions; and the threatened disintegration of the world order established in the wake of the Second World War and the end of the Cold War. Add to this the emergence of yet more new types of cooperatives, the further erosion of the Cooperative Identity as cooperatives continue to imitate their investor-owned competition, periodic waves of demutualisation, and the concern of many cooperators that our role in building a better world is at risk of being eclipsed, on the one side, by growing calls for investor-owned corporations to adopt a social purpose and, on the other, by the increasing interest the social and solidarity economy is attracting, and we have more than enough reasons to focus on making the most of and strengthening our Cooperative Identity. It is in this context that we must ask whether the Statement remains fit for purpose.

What you’re hearing globally: From the ICA Survey and consultation sessions, what are the top 2–3 tensions or “hard questions” people raised about values, principles, or the definition of a cooperative?
Some of the key themes that have emerged to date are whether the Statement takes adequate note of the diversity of forms of primary cooperatives, such as those with multiple stakeholders, and movement tiers above the primary level; the extent to which cooperatives should concern themselves with the natural environment and the wider society beyond their membership; whether there is enough emphasis on democracy and the participation of members; and what obligations today’s cooperative members have to future generations. Respondents have also had much to say about the specific language of the Statement.