The 2025 UN International Year of Cooperatives (IYC) was officially launched at the ICA Global Cooperative Conference and General Assembly, in New Delhi, India. The conference attracted delegates from over 100 countries who discussed how cooperatives build prosperity for all, focusing on four conference pillars: Reaffirming the cooperative identity; Enabling supportive policies; Developing strong leadership: and Building a sustainable future.
These discussions shaped the New Delhi Action Agenda, an action plan adopted at the conference, which asks individual cooperatives, communities, civil society organisations, the private sector, governments, opinion shapers and multilateral institutions to take concrete actions for a just society and safer planet. Read the New Delhi Action Agenda here.
Delegates heard from 100 speakers including UN representatives, Indian government officials and cooperators. The launch ceremony featured over 3,000 participants, including India’s Prime Minister, H.E. Narendra Modi, who delivered a keynote address during the ceremony in which he highlighted the important role cooperatives play in his country. India is home to 800,000 cooperatives, including the Indian Farmers Fertilisers Cooperative (IFFCO), the world's the world's largest cooperative by turnover on GDP per capita.
“For India, cooperatives are a way of life,” he said. “For the whole world, cooperatives are a business model, but at the same time, cooperation is the basis of our culture. It is a lifestyle.” The Prime Minister described how the partnership between the Government of India and cooperatives was key to sustainable growth, and how this growth “should be seen in a human-centric way”.
Read the full press release in the documents attached.
