International Co-operative Alliance

Infobox Co-operative
company_name = International Co-operative Alliance
company_
company_type = cooperative federation
foundation = 1895
location = Geneva
key_people = Ivano Barberini, President
area_served = global
members = 224 (national federations)
industry =
products =
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees =
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homepage = [http://www.ica.coop www.ica.coop] [http://global300.coop global300.coop] [http://icanews.coop icanews.coop]
footnotes =

The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental Co-operative Federation or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. It was founded in 1895 as a result of actions by Edward Vansittart Neale and the Christian Socialists. The ICA maintains the currently accepted version of the Rochdale Principles of Cooperation and the Statement on the Co-operative Identity. [ [http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html Statement on the Co-operative Identity] , 1995 version.] ICA represents 224 co-operative federations and organisations in 87 countries.

In 2006 the ICA published the first major index of the world's largest co-operative and mutual enterprises, the "ICA Global 300", [ [http://global300.coop ICA Global 300] ] which demonstrated the scale of the co-operative movement globally.

The flag

ICA adopted its original rainbow flag in 1925, with the seven colors symbolizing unity in diversity and the power of light, enlightenment, and progress. [ [http://www.ica.coop/publications/digest/14-digest.pdf The ICA flag] , "ICA Weekly Digest", Vol. 1, Number 14, May 17, 2004.] . The new flag was adopted in 2001 at the ICA congress in Seoul, South Korea, to avoid confusion with other "rainbow flags" that emerged in the 1990s. The present flag shows the ICA seven-color logo on a white background. The logo depicts a quarter rainbow with a flock of stylized doves of peace scattering from the top and the letters ICA underneath. The rainbow has only six stripes (red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue) and the seventh color (purple) appears in the lettering under the rainbow. The flag exists in four different versions showing the ICA acrponym in different languages (ACI in Spanish and French, IGB in German, and МКА in Russian).

References

ee also

* List of Co-operative Federations

External links

* [http://www.ica.coop The International Co-operative Alliance]
* [http://icanews.coop The ICA news aggregation website]
* [http://flagspot.net/flags/int-ica.html The story of the ICA flag]