On March 8, 2017 the member activities committee and the policy planning committee of Kanagawa Prefecture Consumers Co-operative Union co-organized a learning session with the participation of 44 people from co-operative related organizations in the prefecture.

Following the opening greetings by Mr. MARUYAMA Yoshihiro, Managing Director of the union, a keynote lecture was given by Professor TAKAHASHI Iwao, Nihon University, College of Biological Resource Sciences, Department of Food Business, under the theme “What we need to know to work together as co-operatives – subtheme: rediscovering co-operatives”.

He mentioned that since the birth of cooperatives over 170 years ago, co-ops have involved in projects and activities that have played a major role in improving the lives of people and communities and today it has evolved into a large organization with more than 1 billion members worldwide.

He went on to say that the United Nations (UN) also raises cooperatives as one of the key partners for the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and expects cooperatives to keep advancing activities towards the achievement of the goals.

Furthermore, he mentioned that, the registration of co-operative by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage in 2016 attest the recognition and highly valued "philosophy and practice of co-operatives" and hence the importance of expanding co-operative ideas and practices in the world.

Co-operatives are also highly valued by the International Labour Organization (ILO) which is a specialized agency of UN for the sustainable development of the stalemate world as well as by the events such as the International Day of Co-operatives and the International Year of Cooperatives (IYC).

However it cannot be said that the Japanese society in general has the idea of co-operatives being evaluated and understood.

In order to have confidence in co-operatives and in ourselves to work in the community, the learning session was organized to provide an opportunity to learn about what we need to know, the meaning of cooperation and the significance of collaboration among cooperatives in this present world.