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Relationship between ICA & ICBA

Ariel Guarco

President, ICA

Bruno Roelants

Director General, ICA

Bhima Subrahmanyam

President, ICBA

Review of the History, Role, Objectives, and relationship of ICBA to the ICA:

The ICA currently has around 80 members in the financial services sector and represents thousands more indirectly through its members who are national-level apex federations. Many of these members, especially in the Americas and Asia-Pacific region, have requested to become a member of ICBA and/or have requested information, networking and/or support in this sector. The ICA Board, at its meeting in Matera on 28 March 2018, approved the Governance Committee’s recommendation to reorganize ICBA, as soon as possible in 2019. Furthermore, having verified that the last ICBA General Assembly elections recorded in ICA General Assemblies were in 2011, the Governance Committee has determined that the ICBA Presidency is presently vacant, and recommends that the ICA global office convene an ICBA General Assembly in October in Kigali and a call for candidates for the ICBA Presidency and Board.

According to the Bylaws of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA):

The Sectoral Assemblies

The General Assembly may establish or dissolve, and recognise or withdraw recognition from, Sectoral Organisations.

Sectoral Organisations may be established in areas of economic and social activity of cooperatives as considered desirable.

The Sectoral Organisations as structures of the global Alliance will:

  1. draw up their Rules for approval by the Alliance Board;
  2. participate in the design of the global Strategic Plan and the multi-annual work program and develop their activities in this framework and report to the Alliance Board;
  3. approve within the Strategic Plan, budget and redistribution agreements, the annual budget and work plan prepared by each of them for integration into the global budget and work plan for approval by the Alliance Board;
  4. through their representatives on the Alliance Board, propose themes for discussion at the global level and keep the Board appraised of sectoral developments;
  5. report regularly on their activities to the Alliance Board;
  6. have their own assemblies and elected bodies made up of representatives of organisations in the pertaining sectors; and
  7. promote sustainable co-operative development in their pertaining sectors.

The General Assembly acknowledges the following Sectoral Organisations:

  1. International Co-operative Agricultural Organisation (ICAO)
  2. International Co-operative Banking Association (ICBA)
  3. Consumer Co-operatives Worldwide (CCW)
  4. International Co-operative Fisheries Organisation (ICFO)
  5. International Health Co-operative Organisation (IHCO)
  6. Co-operative Housing International (CHI)
  7. International Co-operative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF)
  8. International Organisation of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers’ Cooperatives (CICOPA)

The ICA Board has seats for four sectoral representatives, who are nominated by the sectoral organisations and represent the interests of the four sectoral organisations. They serve for four-year terms (until the 2021 ICA General Assembly). The four sectoral representatives are:

  1. Petar Stefanov from Bulgaria
  2. Manuel Mariscal from Spain
  3. Isabelle Ferrand from France
  4. Byeong-Won Kim from Korea

As a global organisation for cooperative banks, ICBA has four key aims:

  1. To facilitate the promotion at the international and regional levels of the distinctive cooperative values of cooperative banks and of the advantages of using them over other banks;
  2. To facilitate and encourage the exchange of information amongst members on key cooperative banking issues and foster inter-cooperation in the finding of solutions
  3. To support regional committees and their members, individually or collectively with specific challenges;
  4. To encourage inter-cooperation with other types of cooperatives and various bodies of the ICA.