Preparations are under way for the upcoming International Year of Cooperatives (IYC) in 2012. DESA and the UN Department of Public Information just released the IYC logo based on the slogan for the year “Cooperative enterprises build a better world”. The logo aims to highlight how cooperative members are able to combine efforts to achieve goals that they would not have been able to attain on their own.

“This logo aptly captures the motivation behind the declaration of the International year of Cooperatives,” said Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General of DESA. “Cooperative enterprises are built on collective action and the principle of participation. They embody the ideal that by working together, we can accomplish more than going it alone. This approach to social and economic enterprise is a good model for the inclusive society that DESA and the United Nations is working to help build.”

Cooperatives have enormous potential to address issues of socio-economic development and help achieve internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. Cooperative enterprises make invaluable contributions to poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration, and the year is intended to raise public awareness of these many contributions.

The goals of the International Year of Cooperatives are to increase public awareness about cooperatives and their contributions to socio-economic development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals; to promote the formation and growth of cooperatives; and to encourage Governments to establish policies, laws and regulations conducive to the formation, growth and stability of cooperatives.