Apex national co-operative organisations, in partnership with the Alliance, have a key role to play in ensuring that nation states comply with internationally accepted norms to establish legal and regulatory frameworks in which co-operatives can flourish. Apex organisations also have a role in providing advice and good practice guidance to co-operatives on how to avoid and/or manage the risks to the autonomy and independence of member co-operatives posed by market dominant suppliers or purchasers of products and services and a role in working with regulators to ensure appropriate and effective regulation.
Since the adoption of the Statement on the Co-operative Identity in 1995 there has been a growing realisation that co-operatives have a great deal to offer not only to members, customers and employees of co-operatives but to society as a whole. ILo recommendation 193 provides a framework for governments to develop the legal, tax, regulatory, financial and administrative systems and policies that will enable co-operatives to flourish whilst fully respecting and maintaining their autonomy and independence. Independence from government means that the members of the co-operative are free and at liberty to make democratic decisions based on what is in the best interests of their members and the wider communities co-operatives serve.
The challenge for individual co-operatives and national co-operative apex organisations interfacing with government is how to achieve effective government support for co-operatives without its resulting in undue government influence over co-operatives. In extremis, co-operatives will be challenged to resist the tendency of some politicians, who do not understand the nature and benefits of co-operative enterprise, to seek the demutualisation and destruction of co-operatives.
Commitment to the 5th Principle of education, training and Information is the answer to these challenges. the more members, employees, politicians, and general public know about the social, cultural and economic benefits co-operatives bring to the table of humanity, the better protected our autonomy, independence, and democratic rights will be.