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The Dunsany Declaration
For Rural Co-operative Development
1. The Dunsany Group believe there are important choices facing rural communities:
? Do they rely to an increasing extent on a dominant and powerful global economic model
to improve their livelihoods;
Or
? Do they take further and deeper control themselves of many of the issues they face
through well-established and successful co-operative options.
2. In this year, the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives, the Dunsany Group,
that is meeting to consider the current role and future aspirations of rural co-operatives in a
time of global economic crisis, recognise that the world will face unprecedented and urgent
challenges over the next 50 years that require immediate action. An age of increasing global
resource scarcity and unequal distribution is leading to major concerns over the deeply
connected issues of feeding a growing population, food security, energy and water
availability and decent work opportunities while at the same time ensuring there is peace in
the world. Together the world is facing increasingly volatile economies, markets and
climatic conditions all this at a time of rapid change.
3. In an increasingly urbanised world, over 3 billion people will continue to live and work in
rural areas, while the whole of the global population will be reliant on the rural landscape
for resources including food and energy and water. For the first time in centuries serious
political and economic power is shifting from west to east and north to south. At the same
time the global information revolution is providing ordinary people with new ways of taking
action, organising and mobilising together to take matters into their own hands. These
changes together may represent both huge opportunities alongside significant challenges
for global stability in an age when critical aspects of the dominant economic model are
failing. Together we urge ordinary people living and working in rural communities to
realise that they can take action over issues of concern to them.
4. Around the world co-operatives as principled and value-driven organisations have a huge
impact on rural life. They achieve this through a diverse range of large and small cooperatives ranging from agriculture and horticulture to energy; forestry to finance; social
services and community development to transport, tourism and many more. The strengths
and benefits of co-operatives for rural communities are recognised. In the United Nations
International Year of Co-operatives 2012 we collectively have developed the momentum for
a decade of co-operative growth in rural communities.
5. Significant and compelling evidence exists demonstrating that co-operation leads to a more
democratised economy and society at a local, national and transnational level alongside a
wide range of other benefits. The Dunsany Group seek to secure the long term social,
economic and environmental sustainability and resilience of rural communities, family
farmers and the global population which heavily relies on rural areas. We see that the
better way forward is for rural communities to mobilise and take responsibility to pursue a
better way of living through co-operative approaches. The strengths and benefits of the cooperative model need to be demonstrated and explained to rural people who could benefit
from co-operative action.
6. Co-operative approaches enable rural people and rural communities to meet the
increasingly urgent challenges facing the world while meeting their own everyday needs and
improving their own lives. Through practical co-operative action rural people can create for
themselves the opportunity to benefit from their work, innovation and entrepreneurship.
They can achieve this while retaining and reinvesting wealth locally.
| 13 years ago. Rating: 3 | |
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