The ICA General Assembly has adopted a declaration in which it reiterates its commitment to “peace, wellbeing and prosperity for all”.
The resolution explains the concept of positive peace, which, according to peace scholar Johan Galtung, is related to the good contributions in the community, particularly cooperation and integration, reconciliation and equality. Positive peace needs to be differentiated from negative peace, which relates to the absence of violence.
Submitted by the ICA board, the resolution calls on the movement to uphold and deepen its commitment to positive peace and call on all of their members to strengthen their action to build positive peace based on the ICA’s Agenda of Cooperative Action for Positive Peace.
The ICA has been committed to peace from its inception and has expressed its position through a number of resolutions, beginning with the 1901 ICA Resolution on Peace adopted at the Manchester Congress.
“The cooperative movement, with its cooperatives, cooperators, support and representative organizations, beyond creeds and political traditions, has sustained since its origins its commitment to positive peace, as the goal and means to build a society founded on the values of democracy, equality, solidarity, participation and concern for the community,” says the resolution.
“Conflicts derive from unmet human needs and aspirations, whereas cooperatives have the mission to respond to human needs and aspirations, including aspirations for a better future, more inclusive, more sustainable, more participative and more prosperous for all.”
