‘NewGenCoop’ Project provided opportunities for collaboration, helped develop the advocacy skills of new generation cooperatives, and established a digital platform to impact sustainable development.

“New Generation Cooperatives Community” Project, or in short “NewGenCoop”, was implemented by Youth Business Cooperative in the Third Phase of the Civil Society Support Programme. The objective was to strengthen the business structures and networking capacities of the new generation cooperatives to increase participation in democratic decision-making processes. The project was carried out in partnership with Turkish National Cooperatives Union and Italian National Cooperatives Union Legacoop’s international development cooperation organisation Haliéus.

The target audience of the project was progressive cooperatives operating in different sectors that underwent restructuring in their internal organisation following the 2012 International Year of Cooperatives. The 30 cooperatives, selected after careful evaluation to ensure sectoral and geographical diversity, brought momentum to development of the cooperative movement in Türkiye through dialogue and collaboration established with the project.

Cooperation among new generation cooperatives

“Organisations that work together and carry out the labour together.”

“A new business model.”

“Creating an ecosystem and ensuring that this ecosystem creates value in itself.”

“A community where solidarity can truly be sustained and preserved.”

These are the definitions of “next generation cooperatives” generated by some of the participants in the “Networking Workshop” held in İzmir in January 2022. The Networking Workshop was organised to strengthen the operational capacities of new generation cooperatives in networking and advocacy processes, with the participation of the project partners and 35 representatives from 31 cooperatives.

The participants had the opportunity to learn more about both the existing national and international cooperative representation structures, as well as other similar structures. Trainings were given on “Effective and Collaborative Governance and Management” and “Advocacy”. Other topics of discussion were the youth committee, programmes supporting cooperative entrepreneurship and innovative best practices on new generation cooperatives.

Digital meeting point for cooperatives

In the project’s fifteen-month run, a digital platform and a database of next generation cooperatives were established. A workshop was organised to jointly design the digital platform that would facilitate new generation cooperatives to collaborate and engage in advocacy activities.

The participants deliberated over the function, design, and content of the digital platform at the workshop, facilitated by the Youth Business Cooperative and Albatros Informatics Cooperative Initiative. The outputs of the workshop helped set the content and function of the digital platform, allowing the expectations and needs of the user cooperatives to reflect in the design and the structure.

Yıldız Başaran, Young Business Cooperative partner, said that the platform at https://newgencoop.org/ is designed to include a promotional section where interested cooperatives can obtain extensive information on the subject, a forum where members can communicate with each other and an introductory section for the cooperatives.

The final event of the project, the Closing Conference, was held in Ankara in June 2022 with the participation of project partners, international representatives, public institutions and organisations in the cooperative ecosystem, cooperatives and CSOs. The project outputs were shared with the stakeholders at the conference, and the participants had the opportunity to discuss expectations and targets of the new generation cooperatives in the near future.

The conference also featured two different panels. One representative from each of the three working groups within the project participated as speakers in the panel titled “New Generation Cooperatives Community Three-Year Action Plan: Scope, Purpose and Forecasts”. The representatives provided detailed information on the activities carried out to establish the three-year action plan by each working group.

The “Organisation and Cooperation of Cooperatives for Sustainable Development” panel featured discussions on the contribution of cooperatives to sustainable development. The speakers shared best practices from Europe and their impact on sustainable development, and how grassroots organisations and marginalised groups in Türkiye were organised under cooperatives during economically and socially trying times.