Across the globe, cooperatives and savings groups play a vital role in advancing sustainable development goals by promoting inclusive economic growth, alleviating poverty, and reducing inequality. Cooperatives and savings groups are also powerful partners in strengthening resilient communities. By bringing people together around a shared purpose, they offer peer support, foster social connections and promote the concepts of collective action, ownership, and decision-making. This creates a sense of collective identity, which is crucial to building social cohesion.

This event explored the role of cooperatives and savings groups in building social capital and their value in promoting individual and community resilience. During the first session, panelists from Global Communities, the U.S. Overseas Cooperative Development Council (OCDC) and Birmingham-Southern College shared insights from their programs and research on building social capital. This included a presentation of findings from studies conducted in Kenya and Guatemala as part of Global Communities’ Cooperative Leadership Engagement Advocacy and Research (CLEAR) program. During the second session, cooperative members and leaders shared personal stories of how the cooperative movement is transforming their lives, families and communities. Following the plenary presentations and discussions, event participants were invited to an informal networking session.