Dear ICA members,

As we approach the end of 2023, I extend warm greetings to all who have continued working this year to deepen our Identity, expand our model, and improve the positioning of cooperative principles and values everywhere.

Ours is a construction sustained from the bottom up, rooted in each community, and connected at the international level by our common vision of the world we want to build. For this, we continue to promote an economy that puts people and the environment at the center, oriented towards the common good in every action we take. 

Driving this economy are the workers, users of cooperative services, producers, consumers, people who are saving for the future, educators, caregivers, and more. We understand that cooperation is more effective than competition and that prosperity must go hand in hand with everyone’s wellbeing. The ICA is the home for all of us who practice this type of economy and has positioned us on the international stage as a strong and integrated movement, defender of a socio-business model that is intimately linked with sustainable development. 

Next year we can continue strengthening this paradigm, which will be in the foreground in 2025, the second United Nations International Year of Cooperatives. We will gather at many other events, and one of them will be in New Delhi, India. The 2024 Global Conference and General Assembly will be hosted by our colleagues from IFFCO and the wider cooperative movement of India, from November 25 to 30.

I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank each of the ICA regions, sectors, and committees, for having and promoting highly productive debates and exchanges. To the global, regional, and sectoral organization offices, thank you for enabling the development of multiple activities together with the membership.

And I must include our brothers and sisters, who are undergoing horrific circumstances in Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, and other places where the violence and cruelty of war are directly harming the social and productive fabric of cooperatives and communities. I wish, more than ever, that 2024 comes loaded with cooperative energy and to advance and build a world with democracy, peace, and social justice.

Convinced that together we will achieve it, with warm cooperative greetings, I wish you very happy holidays with your loved ones. Cheers!

Ariel Guarco,

ICA President