Women in cooperatives have been at the forefront, be it at home, work, or in the community. This month we commemorate the role of women in cooperatives. We highlight the work done by ICA-AP over the years to enhance gender equality, the recent initiative by the Regional Women Committee, and the significance of International Women’s Day. The examples on work done by cooperatives to tackle the current COVID-19 pandemic further shows that women in cooperatives have taken the lead.

ICA-AP’s work to enhance gender equality

This month, to commemorate the invaluable role of women in the cooperative movement, we mark 60 years of work undertaken by ICA-AP and its members to enhance gender equality and work on gender empowerment across regions and sectors.

In the sixties, the focus areas of the ICA Education Centre were in the field of cooperative education, building capacity, and human resources development. From the beginning the Centre focused on   gender issues and in enhancing youth and women participation in cooperatives.  In the seventies, during the United Nations Women Decade (1975-85), initiatives for integrating women and gender concerns in cooperatives were accelerated. In 1990, the Human Resources Development Project of ICA identified the need for gender integration and put women’s participation as an important agenda.

The first Gender Consultation held in Colombo, April-May 1992, was attended by 32 delegates from Movements in the Region. This was followed by a more strategic Gender Planning Conference in Tokyo in 1993. Several Regional Consultations/ Conferences were organized and as result of continuous efforts and increasing activities in gender integration, the idea of a regional women committee was mooted in 1997.  In the same year, the First Conference on the Status of Women in Cooperatives in the Asia-Pacific region was organized in Tagaytay, Philippines on capacity building as well as cooperatives for leadership development of women.

The ICA-AP Committee on Women was established in 1998, in Seoul Korea. It promotes gender integration and increased participation of women at all levels in cooperatives, especially, at leadership levels. This is done through representing women in cooperatives through a common forum; promoting the understanding for gender integration and gender equality through networking; identifying areas for capacity building; advising and implementing activities; and liaising and collaborating with different stakeholders.

In the nineties, the International Organisation of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers Cooperatives (CICOPA) provided funds and expertise for the training and development of women and artisans in handicrafts, and to display their products. ICA-AP has assisted women’s handicraft and textile cooperatives by providing them with techniques and marketing opportunities, through the CICOPA programmes.

In 2001, ILO-CoopNet and ICA, developed a training manual for leadership development in cooperatives in Asia-Pacific. This manual has been subsequently revised and is being used for training of trainers who train women cooperative leaders.

The first Regional study of gendered database was conducted in 2005. In 2017, the second study on sex-disaggregated data, Gender is more than a Statistic: Status of Women in the Cooperatives of the Asia Pacific Region was released.

The JCCU has been an active supporter of the Women Committee activities. They supported the first Regional Gender Consultation in 1992 in Colombo, have seconded experts to work at ICA-AP; financed training programs; and organized seminars and Forums.

Over the years, ICA-AP has collaborated with members in the region to conduct and facilitate a wide array of programmes to build capacity of cooperatives and build women’s capacities, to achieve gender equality. A number of conferences, seminars, workshops, research programmes, training, and capacity building programmes have been carried out across the region. Some of the key areas of work are:

• Organising regional Women Forums, Women CEO meeting, and other conferences;
• Networking programmes for women’s empowerment;
• Training of trainers for leadership development of women in cooperatives;
• Advocacy and lobbying at the Cooperative Ministers’ conferences to impress upon governments to enact gender sensitive laws and policies;
• Technical and financial support to organise gender programmes; provide resources – human and educational;
• Sex disaggregated data collection and dissemination;
• Information dissemination through newsletters and periodicals;
• Demonstrating methods to involve women in operating consumer cooperatives, in income generating activities, and other forms of cooperatives.
   

The chart below provides a brief overview of some of the key activities organised by ICA-AP to enhance gender equality in the region, since 1960.