How are co-ops of the Asia-Pacific accelerating gender equality?

07 April 2025

Throughout 2025, co-ops are celebrating the second International Year of Cooperatives. But in March, organisations also highlighted how mutual businesses contribute to Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) on women’s empowerment, as part of events marking the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BDfA) adopted at the fourth World Conference on Women in China in 1995.

On 19 March, the International Cooperative Alliance Asia Pacific (ICA-AP) office and its Committee on Women organised a virtual parallel event at the 69th NGO Committee on the Status of Women Forum on the topic Policy Actions Matter: Cooperatives in Asia-Pacific and Their Initiatives to Foster SDG 5 (Gender Equality).

Speakers included:

• Event host, Simren Singh, gender and education lead at ICA-AP
• Chitose Arai, chair of the ICA-AP Committee on Women
• Ida Suhanya Jesu, gender and inclusion specialist at the International Labour Organization (ILO)
• Priti Patel, vice chair of the ICA-AP Women’s Committee and member of the National Women’s Committee of the National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI)
• Linda Seaborne, senior policy advisor at the Business Council of Cooperatives and Mutuals (BCCM)
• Hermes Vergara, chair of the gender and development committee of the National Confederation of Cooperatives (NATCCO)

Read Co-operative News’ report on this ICA regional event on work by the sector to advance SDG5, with examples from Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia and India.