2025 is the United Nations’ Year of Co-operatives – a global celebration of a movement of over 1 billion people. To mark the occasion, the Co-operative Party is launching a new report on Lessons from Global Co-operative Development. The report looks at world-leading examples of co-operative growth – reviewing how these countries built-up their co-op sectors. While Britain is the birthplace of the co-operative movement, other nations have overtaken Britain in recent decades in terms of co-operative density and sector size. With the Labour Government’s commitment to double the size of the co-operative sector, now is the time to learn from peer nations on how to achieve this ambition.

From its earliest days in Rochdale, the co-operative movement has now gone global – with a presence in almost every sector and nation of the world. The report focuses on five nations and regions which have demonstrated particularly effective co-operative growth – although many others could have been included. South Korea, Italy, France, Sweden and the autonomous region of Catalonia in Spain have each developed diversified co-operatives sectors which create good jobs, boost economic growth and meet wider socio-economic challenges. Most notably, South Korea has successfully achieved a doubling of the size of their co-operative sector since the landmark introduction of the Framework on Co-operatives Act in 2012.

The success of these different national approaches to developing co-operatives revealed shared themes and policies. By putting these shared mechanisms in place, countries can lay the foundations for growth driven by passionate and ambitious co-operators.

Establishing a world-leading legislative framework, which enables co-operative growth quickly and easily into new sectors and industries with legal clarity is vital. This is clearly seen by the growth of the co-operative sector following the inclusion of co-operatives in the Italian Republic’s Constitution or by the introduction of France’s Hamon Law 2014. Co-operatives must be put at the heart of economic development plans, such as Industrial Strategies, with the necessary system of co-operative development support to facilitate growth. National and regional authorities can play their role by using public procurement in a way which opens opportunities for co-operatives and mutuals – as seen by the development of social co-operatives in Italy, South Korea and Spain. Finally, ensuring funding opportunities are available and targeted towards co-operatives can enable them to scale effectively to enter new markets and meet new socio-economic challenges – demonstrated by the co-operative federations’ mutual funds in Italy.

As we mark Co-op Fortnight in the UN Year of Co-operatives, lets take learnings from the remarkable success of our global movement. With a Labour Government committed to doubling the size of the co-operative sector, we must aim to once again become world-leading in our ambitions and growth – re-establishing the British co-operative sector as pioneers for the 21st century.

To read the full report, please follow the link by clicking here.