The ICA-AP regional office participated in the first online meeting of the network of industrial and service cooperatives in the Asia-Pacific region, “CICOPA Asia and Pacific” or “CICOPA-AP” on 30 March 2022. The meeting was organized by Japan Workers Cooperative Union (JWCU, Japan) in collaboration with CICOPA, the ICA network of industrial and service cooperatives. The meeting had 13 participants from 8 countries including KFWC (South Korea), ICCIC (China), LSP2i (Indonesia), ULCCS (India), Rah-e-Roshd (Iran) and BCCM (Australia).

Mr. Mohit Dave, Head - Partnerships and Resource Mobilization represented ICA-AP. He shared some of the key opportunities for collaboration between ICA-AP and the network including acting upon the recommendations of the 2019 research on “Exploring Work and Ownership in Cooperatives,” to understand the diversity of industrial and service cooperatives in the Asia-Pacific region, and explore the common “identity.” He mentioned that the ICA-AP office is willing to support the network and exchange information on topics such as social solidarity economy, workers-buy-out (WBO), collaboration with trade unions and NGOs/NPOs, migrant workers, gig economy and platform cooperatives, SDGs, and climate crisis.

The participants highlighted the need to examine the common problems and challenges that industrial and service cooperatives in the region are facing such as lack of legal framework and appropriate governmental policy, shortage of financial resources, and low social awareness among others. They discussed exploring the possibility of developing this network into an official organization with a dedicated budget and secretariat.