International Co-operative Alliance
The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental co-operative federation or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. It was founded in 1895. The ICA maintains the internationally recognised definition of a co-operative in the Statement on the Co-operative Identity. ICA represents 248 co-operative federations and organisations in 92 countries (7 October 2010).
In 2006 the ICA published the first major index of the world's largest co-operative and mutual enterprises, the ICA Global 300, which demonstrated the scale of the co-operative movement globally.
On the first Saturday of July each year, the ICA coordinates celebrations of International Co-operative Day.
In December 2009, the United Nations declared 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives.
Read more about International Co-operative Alliance: Structure, The Flag
Famous quotes containing the word alliance:
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)