THE ACTIVITIES OF I C A IN REGIONAL OFFICE OF WEST AFRICA, ASIA AND THE PACIFIC. A RESEARCH PROJECT MATERIAL ON CO-OPERATIVE ECONOMICS
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATIVE ALLIANCE REGIONAL OFFICE FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC .
The major thrust of this chapter x-rayed the emergence of todays’ co-operative.
Principles. The international co-operative alliance (ICA) came into being in 1895 in London, England. The ICA roap is the regional office for Acia and the pacific of international co-operative Alliance (ICA) the world body of all co-operative with its head office in Geneva founded in London on 13 August 1895. I C A is a member – based organization with national and international co-operative organizations in over 102 countries. It serves more than 241 member organizations, including five international organizations, representing well over 780 million individual members around the world.
Besides the head office in Geneva, Switzerland, there are five regional offices vis:
a) Regional office for Asia and the pacific.
b) Regional office for East Central and Southern Africa.
c) Regional office for West Africa.
d) Regional office for central America and the Canibbean.
e) And Regional office for Europe.
The I C A enjoys category – 1 consultative status with the united Nations Economic and social council (UNECOSOC) and has active working relations with UN and other international organizations.
The I C A Regional for Asia and the pacific (ICA ROAP) is also located in New Delhire India, serves 54 national level organizations from 22 countries and one international organization Asian Confederation of Credit Unions (ACCU), representing over 48 million individual members of co-operatives in Asia pacific region. It is the apex body charged with co-operative development. Over time, I C A came to realize the inadequacies of the Rochadale co-operative principles.
Many factors gave rise to I C A revisiting the Rochdale principles. Over the years, all co-operatives the world ever adopted these principles just to be recognized as co-operatives. With the passage of time practitioners recognized that these Rochdale principles were grossly inadequate to all types of co-operatives.
Many reasons accounted for this. They include:
i) The Rochdale principles were essentially for consumer retailing and therefore could not apply to other types of co-operatives like credit, marketing, farming, etc.
ii) The Rochdale principles were not only philosophies but contained some trade practices which were not typically principles. For instance, cash trading at market price and sale of pure and unadulterated goods were trade practices, which can apply to other business organization.
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