Turkish Cooperatives at the 100th Anniversary of the Republic

Altınbaş University hosted the first day of the conference “Cooperatives in the 100th Anniversary of the Republic of Türkiye” organized in cooperation with IPA: “The Importance of Cooperatives on the Road to Sustainable Development Goals1 conference. During the 2-day conference, the development process of cooperatives in Türkiye during the centennial of the Republic of Türkiye was discussed.

Altınbaş University Rector Çağrı Erhan made the opening speech of the meeting, which was attended by many academicians, including Cooperatives Europe Secretary General Anges Mathis and ILO Cooperative Social and Solidarity Economy Program Manager Simel Eşim.

Altınbaş University Rector Prof. Dr. Çağrı Erhan started his opening speech by expressing his happiness to be holding the 99th of the events organized as a gift to the 100th anniversary of the Republic.

3 basic conditions for successful cooperatives...

Prof. Dr. Çağrı Erhan pointed out that there are three basic conditions for a cooperative to be successful: “One is legislation. An updated legislation that is up to date, where everything is clear, penalties and deadlines are well regulated is a must. The second is a good guidance mechanism. In order to manage the processes with the state, municipalities or associations well, good consultancy is required. The third is good management. The essence of cooperatives is amateur spirit, but a cooperative can only be successful if it is well managed by professional managers.”

“Cooperatives are an important actor in achieving sustainable development goals”

Altınbaş University Faculty of Business Dean Prof. Dr. Zeynep Özsoy stated that within the scope of the conference, they will discuss cooperatives in Türkiye from an academic perspective. Stating that they aim to shed light on this field, which has been invisible until recently, Özsoy said, “We have been experiencing many crises in the world recently, manifested by destructive conflicts, wars, forced migrations, the cost of living affecting the global south and north, and extreme weather events. In this period, it has become a necessity to discuss different economic alternatives. Cooperatives are also important actors in developing business models that are democratic, inclusive, compatible with nature and the environment, and in achieving sustainability development goals, especially in times of social and economic crisis.”

UN recognizes 2025 as the World Year of Cooperatives

Özsoy said that the UN has declared 2025 as the World Year of Cooperatives and concluded his speech by saying, “We will be together to think about what we can do to improve the capacity of cooperatives in Türkiye.”

“Producer cooperatives aim to reduce poverty in rural areas”

Simel Eşim, ILO Cooperative Social and Solidarity Economy Program Manager, who participated in the conference online, stated that only Goal 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals mentions social cooperatives as a means of implementation. Simel Eşim pointed out that cooperatives support the progress of many goals in practice, and gave the example of the goal of reducing poverty, especially in rural areas, through producer cooperatives. Ms. Eşim continued her words as follows: “We can link the gender equality and decent work of women and worker cooperatives in sectors such as food and manufacturing to Goal 5 and Goal 8. The United Nations General Assembly's declaration of 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives will help to increase the role of cooperatives in achieving this sustainable development. Beyond these sustainable development goals, a new development agenda is currently being outlined. We have 5 years left to realize the sustainable development goals. We need to look at what will happen next, what we did not do right, what we can do differently. We need to start underlining cooperative values, principles and the mechanism of experimentation, both locally and nationally, as well as regionally and internationally.”

On the first day of the event, Prof. Dr. Beyza Oba and Prof. Dr. Hayri Kozanoğlu moderated the sessions titled “Cooperatives and Sustainable Cooperatives in Türkiye from Past to Present”.

Development Goals” topics were discussed.

“Solidarity economies can be strengthened through cooperatives”

The second day of the Conference, which was held at the IPA Campus, started with the opening speeches of Oktay Karagül, IPA General Manager, and Zeynep Özsoy, Dean of Altınbaş University Faculty of Business Administration. Then, representatives of production and consumption cooperatives, academics and logistics professionals took the floor and discussed alternative solution methods.

In the “Alternative Food Networks Workshop”, the situation of production and consumption cooperatives, which operate in the field of food and are among the most important actors of the cooperative ecosystem, was evaluated. The conference, which was attended by Ahmet Atalık, Head of IBB Department of Agricultural Services, Dr. Hatice Kurşuncu from Istanbul Planning Agency-Vision 2050 Office, Uygar Usar from CILT Türkiye, Prof. Dr. Beyza Oba from Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Business Administration and Abdullah Aysu, Farmer and Writer, revealed the potential contributions of cooperatives in achieving sustainable development goals, while revealing the economic, social and logistical challenges faced by cooperatives. Panel and forum participants emphasized that solidarity economies can be strengthened through cooperatives, but that cooperatives need more support and awareness raising in this process.