Unga-Link UK Interactive

Rianne ten Veen sent a link to the message from the United Nations’ Secretary-General Ban ki Moon on the International Day of Cooperatives.

The theme for this year’s International Day of Cooperatives, “Youth, the Future of Cooperatives”, highlights the enormous value of engaging the energy and drive of young people.

In the wake of the global financial and economic crisis, youth unemployment is at an all-time high. Expanding opportunity through youth entrepreneurship is one way to address this challenge. The cooperative model enables young people to create and manage sustainable enterprises. Cooperatives are underpinned by the pooling of financial and human resources, technical knowledge and business skills. Furthermore, their member-driven structure roots them in communities, encouraging socially responsible businesses that meet local needs.

Through their distinctive focus on values, cooperatives have proven themselves a resilient and viable business model that can prosper even during difficult times. This success has helped prevent many families and communities from sliding into poverty. Cooperatives have also continuously provided reliable access to credit and other financial services for many small business holders. Moreover, cooperatives have done so while promoting self-reliance and creating stability in the markets in which they operate.

Throughout this year’s observance of the International Year of Youth, decision makers around the world have stressed the importance of including young people at all levels of the development process. The active inclusion of young women and men in social and economic development helps reduce social exclusion, improve productive capacity, break cycles of poverty, promote gender equality and raise environmental responsibility.

As we move into the International Year of Cooperatives, which will be officially launched this October, I invite young people to explore the benefits of pursuing cooperative enterprise and other forms of social entrepreneurship. At the same time, I encourage the cooperative movement to engage with youth, in a spirit of dialogue and mutual understanding. Let us recognize young women and men as valuable partners in strengthening the cooperative movement and in sustaining the role of cooperatives in social and economic development.

New York, 2 July 2011

Another reference to the Millennium Development Goals came from a Bangladeshi contact today.  

A conference in Bangladesh on Social Business Day [28th June] had many participants from around the world. Social business is not yet in the mainstream of United Nations thinking but at this event there were good examples showing that social business works.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star in Dhaka Thomas Stelzer, the assistant secretary-general of the United Nations for policy coordination and inter-agency affairs, who works closely with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on millennium development goals, talked about what he learnt from the Social Business Day celebrations.

He focused on the challenges that lie ahead for achieving MDGs and how social business can complement other efforts in reaching the goals. He said:

”Social business is one of the economic theories, which is achieving a breakthrough — acceptability. People will invest in social business more and more — with a clear purpose. People will know why they are investing in it, which is a departure from the usual way of investment.

”In conventional investment, you have a shareholding value, returns and income, whereas in social business you don’t have all of that and you have to conceptualise why you are investing. In social business, the vital question will be about qualitative, not quantitative growth.

”People do things they are satisfied with and invest for different reasons. For many, it is a game and sport and they always think how they can maximise the outcome of their investments. What is the reason for putting $15-20 billion in your account?

”But in social business, things change. A social business investor looks for satisfaction, but you draw your satisfaction differently, not by accumulating wealth, but by investing the energy of your life in a way that makes you feel good. It is an altruistic, socially-oriented understanding of how you can contribute to today’s economy.

”I think social business decisively contribute to advancing MDGs. Achieving MDGs through social business alone will be a bit narrow. But I am convinced that social business very strongly influences the acceleration of implementation.

“We at the United Nations look at what works. MDGs are at the core of our work. So we look into every possibility of implementing MDGs. Social business seems to be a good option to complement many other efforts. This is how I look at it. So we are not in the business of choosing one over the other. Social business seems to work in this context. ”

To read the Daily Star article click here.