By Anca Voinea
With the G20 Summit due to take place in Rome, Italy, in October, the International Cooperative Alliance has created a G20 Working Group to present the movement’s voice.
A forum for international economic co-operation, the G20 Summit brings together the leaders of the governments and central bank governors from 19 countries and the European Union (EU).
The G20 Engagement Groups develop action-oriented policy recommendations, which go to the G20 leaders for consideration, adoption, and implementation. The ICA G20 Working Group will be collaborating with members of the Italian Cooperative Alliance to contribute to these discussions, particularly involving the Business 20 (B20) and Civil Society 20 (C20) task forces.
“The ICA G20 working group will help create a more significant impact and amplify co-operatives’ voices to influence and be included in the recommendations submitted to the heads of states and governments at the G20 Summit”, said Bruno Roelants, director general of the ICA. “Members from 13 G20 countries are currently represented in the group, we look forward to welcome more participants from the remaining countries.”
The first meeting of the ICA’s G20 Working Group took place on 23 March, when members appointed Howard Brodsky, co-founder, chair, and co-chief executive of CCA Global Partners, United States, as the chair.
He said: “Co-operatives’ role could not be more critical than now, as the world is going through a pandemic. Co-operatives are quite important and meaningful to people worldwide, yet so little is known about them and what they do. Therefore, having a stake in the G20 engagements is a very opportune time for us to share what co-operatives do and how they solve some of the global challenges that have been on the rise, and how they contribute to equality and democratic voice to everybody.”
The G20 Working Group’s vice-chairs will coordinate discussions for the B20 or C20, and their position will rotate, depending on the country hosting the G20 presidency each year.
This year’s vice chairs are Alessandro Hinna, president of Consorzio Nazionale dei Servizi, a National Consortium of Service Cooperatives, and associate professor at the University of Rome, who will act as the vice-chair in charge of the B20 task forces; and Giuseppe Guerini, president of CECOP CICOPA-Europe, who will be the vice chair in charge of the C20 task forces. Stefania Marcone, chief of international relations & European policies at Legacoop Italy, will be the B20 task forces facilitator while Danila Curcio, head of international institutional relations at Confcooperative, will be the C20 task forces facilitator.
Representatives from the co-operative movement will take part in four of the eight B20 task forces as well as all the eight task forces of the C20.
The movement has participated in previous editions of the B20 Summit, in which taskforce representatives sought to ensure co-operatives are recognised as key contributors to solving the world’s challenges. In 2017 the final set of policy recommendations of the B20 Summit under the German presidency to the G20 included mentions of the role of co-operative models in employment generation, fostering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and promoting entrepreneurship.
