Under the theme “The empowerment of cooperatives”, the International Summit of Cooperatives, global reference event for business development in the cooperative and mutualist environment, was held from 11 to 13 October 2016, in Quebec City.

Aiming to promote and enhance the enterprise development in all countries, the event was attended by 2950 people from 116 countries, 235 speakers, 6 round tables, 9 forums, 7 sectored meetings, 5 workshops, 14 unpublished studies and 50 meetings.

The Guinean Association for the Relief of Feminine Charges (L’Association Guinéenne pour l’Allègement des Charges Féminines), member of the Guinean Network of Social Solidarity Economy represented the African Network of Social Solidarity Economy (RAESS) in this important meeting, exposing the products of the Guinéenne des Terroirs, cooperative enterprise of rural women in Guinea engaged in agricultural production, food processing and social finance.

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Beyond a Stand in the top of the showroom, they were able to attend various conferences, round tables sectored meetings, workshops and B2B meetings related in particular to the following themes:

  • The role of women in the cooperative movement, their very significant contributions to production and the agri-food value chain activities; the representation of women in cooperative decision-making bodies; the development of women’s leadership; the promotion of cooperative credit; the economic empowerment of women and farmers through the integration of products to markets in commerce and trade.
  • The South-South and North-South partnerships, but also and especially, the link with the African Diaspora living in the North to promote African countries´ food products.
  • Strengthening cooperatives´ institutional capacity to enable them to resist and move towards  sustainability; develop precision farming adapted to the consumer market.

The holding of this summit has shown that the cooperative business model is one of the responses to the major socioeconomic issues of our time; therefore, Africa must invest in the cooperative movement and priorize actors and actresses through a better structure for the construction of housing estates, representative of the values and richness of the African continent.

Translation of the article of the web of RAESS (French)