ILO’s message for the 13th National Festival of “Superior Cooperatives” in Iran

ILO Cooperatives Unit Manager Simel Esim sent a video message to the 13th National Festival of Superior Cooperatives organized by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare in Tehran, Iran.

News | 27 September 2018
The 13th National Festival of “Superior Cooperatives” was organized on 4 September 2018 in Tehran, Iran by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare with the participation of government officials, and leaders of cooperative unions and cooperative members, among others.
Opening session of the Festival
At the event, Mr. Hamid Kalantari, Deputy Minister for Cooperative Affairs, stated that more than 15,000 cooperatives registered for this competition and added that the main objective of the Festival was to promulgate the exemplary cooperatives of the country so as to make a pattern for successful cooperatives.

He also noted fundamentals of the cooperative movement encompass a set of principles, and values that provide them with the appropriate managerial tools to bring their members together to fulfil their common objectives and needs through social, human and financial capital.

The ILO contributed to the Festival with a video message presented at the opening session. In the video message, ILO’s Cooperatives Unit Manager Simel Esim reflected on the emergence of new types of cooperatives in response to the social and economic changes in the world of work and highlighted the importance of developing an enabling environment to support such initiatives, including supportive legislation, financing mechanisms and solid statistics.

The selection criteria in identifying superior cooperatives included the number of members in the cooperatives and the number of jobs generated by the cooperatives. Economic production, sales and export volume (for export-oriented cooperatives) and good reputation were some other factors taken into account.

In this Festival, 37 cooperatives were introduced as superior cooperatives in Iran for 2018 and six cooperatives were identified as the superior knowledge-based cooperatives. In addition, 14 cooperatives which had been selected as national superior cooperatives at least twice during the last five years attained the title of “sustainable superiority”. In addition, eight cooperatives, which had made outstanding efforts in following the principles and regulations concerning environment and sustainable development, were introduced as “green cooperatives”. The Festival also paid tribute to cooperatives that have made outstanding efforts to promote the culture of cooperatives in society and in protecting international cooperative principles by extending them the title of “cooperative ambassadors”.