Anugya Chitransh joined ICA-AP in October for a 6-month internship. She shares her experience with the Regional Office in a candid post below:
I started my internship at ICA-AP's Delhi offices in October 2019, soon after I graduated from my master's programme in International Relations at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. One of my areas of interest were supranational institutions and their affect in the Asia Pacific region. What better example could I find than ICA-AP? It checked off all the boxes - an international organisation working actively with national apexes and cooperative federations in the Asia Pacific region. The cherry on the cake was the fact that they were looking for researcher interns who would look at the cooperative sectors of countries in the region.
While I knew about the cooperative model and their contribution to the Indian economy and start-up sphere, I knew nothing about their global contributions. I didn't know how they were supervised or that they had a rich cultural context that led to their beginnings in each country. As I look back at myself, six months ago, I would have been hard-pressed to name more than three to four cooperatives, or even the fact that they were widespread in so many sectors other than agriculture and dairy.
As I worked on the country snapshots, I was able to observe cooperatives of countries that were at different stages of economic development. Due to this, while the cooperative principles remained uniform, there was innovation in the way they did their business. Platform cooperatives were more widespread in Australia and New Zealand, while the Philippines had laboratory cooperatives and advocacy cooperatives. The smaller Oceania countries favoured agriculture, copra and financial cooperatives. When I had to shortlist case studies, I got the opportunity to see many different models such as the Drawa Block Forest Communities Cooperative in northern Fiji that not only protects the rainforest, but also, generates and sells carbon credits; Coop Incubator Ltd. in Australia which is a cooperative in itself and also an incubator for cooperatives; Arghavan Dasht-e Paeezan in Iran which is the world's only Fairtrade certified saffron farmer's cooperative; World Travellers Ltd. in New Zealand which is redefining travel agencies and trip planning for its customers; and so many more others that are doing exceptional work in their communities, and in the way they do business.
A look at the cooperative history of any country is incomplete without analysing how the laws governing the sector have changed over the years. Since most countries is South and Southeast Asia were former colonies, the initial legislation/regulation were passed by the colonial rulers and very much inspired by the cooperative laws in their home countries. They were adapted, especially in the Pacific countries of Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, for "native" cooperators. Australia and New Zealand had separate laws for cooperatives, mutuals and friendly societies. It did take me a while to understand the different terminology!
Towards the second-half of my internship, I also had the opportunity to interact with people at the Malaysia Business Office. That proved extremely useful when I started working on a consumer sector snapshot. The broad definition of consumer cooperatives and what parameters different countries take to label one as a consumer cooperative led to many engaging conversations within the office.
As I move on from ICA-AP, I will fondly remember not only the work I did here but also the people who make up the organisation. Through all of this, my colleagues, supervisors and especially Regional Director Mr. Balasubramanian Iyer, were extremely supportive and willing to answer my doubts and listen to my opinions. Other than work, I also got the opportunity to interact with them, and get to know them over lunch breaks, coffee breaks and office parties. It was an extremely fun and enriching experience!
