The Asia Pacific Cooperative Development Platform (APCDP) is an initiative by the ICA Asia and Pacific (ICA-AP) Regional Office to foster exchanges and collaboration among cooperative development organisations (CDOs) active in international cooperation and development. These organisations have their roots both within and outside the Asia Pacific region and are homegrown, external, and regional entities that are working to promote cooperatives. The objectives of APCDP are to
- Facilitate knowledge exchange
- Map APCDP member activities
- Showcase best practices
- Advocate for cooperative development
The initiative has been undertaken by ICA-AP under the ICA-EU Financial Framework Partnership Agreement 2 (FFPA2), “Cooperatives: People-Centered Businesses for Sustainable, Democratic, and Inclusive Development."
To present the APCDP initiative and seek ideas, an introductory webinar was held on September 4, 2024. Representatives from DGRV (Mr. Korbinian März, Project Coordinator), WeEffect (Ms. Anneli Leina, Closure Manager), Agriterra (Ms. Hien, Country Representative cum Senior Cooperative Advisor), Halièus (Ms. Francesca, President & ICDP Chair), All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives (Mr. Zhang Jin, Division Chief International Cooperation Department & Mr. Wang Man, Program Officer International Cooperation Department), National Cooperative Union of India (Mr. Dileep Sanghani, President & Ms Savitri Singh, Deputy Chief Executive), National Agricultural Cooperative Federation of Korea (Mr. Yuk & team), the Malaysian National Cooperative Movement, ANGKASA (Mr. Firdaus & Mr. Muhammad Nur Salam, International Department), and the Japanese Consumer Cooperatives Union (Ms. Satako Horiuchi, International Department) participated in the introductory webinar.
Ms. Monalisa Kashyap, Program Coordinator and Advocacy Officer of the ICA-EU FFPA 2 shared the welcome address and facilitated participants' introductions. Mr. Balasubramanian Iyer, Regional Director, ICA-AP led a brief discussion on the background of APCDP. Ms. Francesca, Chair of the International Cooperative Development Platform (ICDP) provided an overview of the international platform. The participants further discussed the objectives of APCDP, expectations from this platform and the possibility of a meeting during the ICA Global Cooperative Conference in New Delhi in November 2024.
Participants appreciated the initiative to establish APCDP and agreed to hold an informal meeting with APCDP members in November 2024, where the next course of action will be discussed and finalized.
