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	Organising Cooperatively by UN News / The Australia Institute   July 2009   UN Secretary-General: Co-operatives can help pull world out of recession. (UN News)   Cooperatives, based on the principles of self-help and reciprocity, have the potential to help address the global economic crisis, especially among the world"s most vulnerable, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.   Cooperatives economic model is not based on charity, he said, noting that in countries affected by the turmoil, cooperative banks and credit unions have expanded lending when other financial institutions have scaled back.   “This highlights the importance of strong alternative business models and institutional diversity for the resilience of the financial system,” Mr. Ban said in his message on the International Day of Cooperatives, whose theme this year is “Driving Global Recovery Through Cooperatives.”   With communities worldwide rediscovering the need to work together to overcome the crisis, he stressed that cooperatives deserve greater support from governments, which can adopt policies to boost the setting up of cooperatives, and consumers, who can buy food produced by small-holder cooperatives traded in fair markets.   In 1992, the General Assembly proclaimed the first Saturday of every July to be the International Day of Cooperatives, marking the centenary of the International Cooperative Alliance, which united and represents cooperatives around the world.   Jan 2009   Organising Cooperatively. (The Australia Institute)   There are many reasons behind the recent global financial crisis but it is probably fair to say that the over-arching cause was the single-minded pursuit of profit by many corporations and businesses, especially those in developed countries. Anything goes as long as the result is profit, more and more of it. And what goes includes ethics, humanity, the greater good, even logic and intelligence. Profits realised in this feverish hunt were not used for constructive purposes but instead built a financial house of cards that chased even more profits and collapsed when a foundation card buckled.   This situation has occurred because the company structure allowed financial institutions such as superannuation funds, investment trusts, mutual funds, private equity funds and so on to become major shareholders in corporations. Financial institutions are not concerned with what their investments actually do but only with how much money their investments actually make. Businesses that were once concerned to manufacture beneficial goods or provide helpful services, making adequate profits in the process, are now bullied into achieving maximum profits and dividends at all costs.   The consequences have not been desirable. There are other organisational structures, however, which might prove to be more acceptable to a world reeling from the destruction of the global financial crisis. One of these is the mutual or cooperative organisation. Cooperatives are owned and controlled by their members who have banded together because of their mutual interests or aims to realise their common economic, social and cultural needs.   Being a cooperative doesn"t mean being small. In Australia, household deposits at credit unions and building societies (which are run on cooperative principles) exceed $50 billion and are growing at close to 10 per cent annually. The household deposit base of Australia"s mutual ADIs (authorised deposit-taking institutions) is second only to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and will grow as investors look for safe and competitive alternatives to the commercial banks.   Cooperatives are a truly democratic corporate structure. They are structured to provide a service rather than a profit to their members; any surpluses are shared on the basis of members contributions to the enterprise rather than their ability to bring in financial capital. Based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity, cooperatives encourage their members to believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others. For example, the Macleay Cooperative in New South Wales runs a program aimed at employing Indigenous people as it operates in an area with a large Indigenous population.   In the wake of the global financial crisis, the cooperative structure is enjoying a resurgence of interest. But cooperatives have existed in many countries for many years and are not a new concept. World-wide, they are estimated to employ more than 100 million women and men and in 2008, the top 300 experienced an aggregate turnover of US$1.1 trillion, an amount approximately the size of Australia"s GDP. Many believe they comprise the best system for the production and distribution of commodities and the provision of banking, insurance and retail services.. Visit the related web page
	Global financial crunch set to cut remittances by IRIN News Bangladesh   Millions of Bangladeshis will be hit by an expected downturn in remittances because of the global financial crisis, experts warn.   Some five million Bangladeshis work abroad, mostly in the Middle East, in healthcare, engineering, domestic service and manual labour.   “We won’t feel the blow of the cut in overseas employment immediately, but after two to three years remittances will definitely dry up if no major changes take place,” Syed Ashraf Ali, former executive director of the Bangladesh Bank, in Dhaka said.   Although foreign workers make up just 2.8 percent of the population, they contribute more than 9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).   Remittances are Bangladesh''s second-biggest source of foreign income after ready-made garments, which earned US$10.7 billion in the last fiscal year.   “Remittances are like a goldmine for Bangladesh, playing a key role for stability in the balance of payments and mitigating unemployment problems here,” said economist Atiur Rahman, chairman of Shamunnoy, an NGO. “We will be in deep crisis if remittances are destroyed.”   Bangladeshis working abroad sent home $7.5 billion in the first 10 months of 2008, up 37 percent on the same period a year earlier. The central bank expects the inflow of remittances to reach $10 billion in the current financial year (July 2008-June 2009).   But as the global financial crisis worsens, those figures will likely decrease, as major labour markets reduce their quotas.   “Signs are there that the demand for Bangladeshi labour will drastically slide in the Middle and Far Eastern countries,” Jahangir Kabir Chowdhury, a leading recruiting agent, told IRIN, adding that Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, two major employers of Bangladesh migrant labour, had already slashed their quota for Bangladesh from September.   At a recent conference in Dhaka, Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) warned that the ongoing global economic slowdown would further affect remittances to third world countries, including Bangladesh, where approximately 38 percent of inhabitants live below the poverty line.   While there are no exact figures on how many people will be affected, throughout Bangladesh at least one family in every village is dependent on regular remittances to survive.   Citing International Labour Organisation (ILO) statistics, Supachai said the financial crisis would raise global unemployment by 20 million in 2009 and push 40 million people into extreme poverty. Globally, migrant workers remitted $250 billion in 2008, he said.
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