The United Nations General Assembly has designated 2012 as the U.N. International Year of Cooperatives. The world body recognizes the contribution of cooperatives to socioeconomic development, particularly their roles in poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration.
In the wake of the 2008 Lehman Brothers shock, economic imbalance and distortion caused by the market economy have become salient. It is our hope that cooperatives become more involved in efforts to secure stable food supplies, improve community medical services, ensure the well-being of the elderly, create employment opportunities, revive depopulated communities and protecting the environment from the greedy exploitation.
As of March 2011, some 250 organizations from 93 countries belonged to the International Co-operative Alliance. With nearly a billion members, it is important for these cooperative organizations to make efforts to raise public and government awareness of their contributions to social and economic development.