POSTPONED: 33rd World Cooperative Congress

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Cooperative Congress has been postponed and will be held from 1-3 December 2021 in Seoul, Republic of Korea. *

The World Cooperative Congress in 2021 will be an opportunity to look back and validate the cooperative movement’s resilience, leadership and solidarity during times of crisis. This event will serve as an important forum to:

• Discuss why the cooperative identity, including definition, principles and values, is needed now more than ever;
• Show cooperative resilience by sharing experiences and testimonies; and
• Discuss how cooperatives can significantly contribute to the global economic, social and environmental reconstruction.

As originally defined, the theme of the Congress will still be ‘Deepening our Cooperative Identity.’ Looking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, we look forward to deepening our understanding of how our cooperative identity has enabled us to tackle this crisis and how we will overcome other global challenges like climate change, sustainable development, peace and equality. Together, we can cooperate to create a better, fairer and more inclusive world for generations to come. 

A Historical Event

The World Cooperative Congresses are historical moments for the cooperative movement. Despite the postponement, this Congress remains particularly significant and we will be celebrating ICA’s 125th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of the Statement on the Cooperative Identity.

We are expecting about 2,000 participants consisting of ICA members and cooperators from around the world.

We will discuss an array of themes that are linked to the cooperative identity and will be useful both for cooperatives’ positioning at the national and international level at a time when the recognition of our specificities is increasingly difficult and for cooperatives to learn how to better use the cooperative identity to do business and increase their business sales in a context of global competition. For this, a number of high-quality papers and studies will be prepared and will be presented. 

More information on the event here.

* The dates of the event are subject to be further rescheduled should the pandemic make it necessary for force majeure.