The Role of the co-operative enterprise model in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

Abstract

The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are currently suffering from the decrease in demand for goods, reduction in export revenues and the fall in the prices as a result of the economic vulnerability and uncertainty triggered by the global economic crisis. How will the Cooperatives Enterprise Model be a catalyst to the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in LDCs? The 17 SDGs, the 2030 Agenda for sustainable Development, are designed to assist the international community free the human race from hunger, poverty and oppression. It is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. LDCs are characterized by their acute susceptibility to external economic shocks, natural and man-made disasters and communicable diseases. They represent the weakest and poorest segment of the world’s community. They contribute about one per cent to global trade in goods, include nearly 900 million people (about twelve per cent of the world’s population) yet account for only less than two percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While SDGs focus on all areas of sustainable development, there is a special focus on LDCs. They are considered the main countries in need of attainment of SDGs. SDG are transformational and put a focus on equality under the headline “leaving no one behind1”, which implies giving priority to the LDCs. The SDGs provide a broad and integrated development framework with the 2030 Agenda purposed to support the implementation of relevant strategies and programs of action. Challenges and priorities of LDCs are firmly embodied in the basic architecture of the 2030 Agenda. It will require an extraordinary enlistment of resources to support its implementation. While their predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), focused on a limited number of specific, globally human and statistically quantifiable targets, the SDGs bring forward the unfinished business of the MDGs and go even further. All possible resources must be organized if the world is to be successful in realizing sustainable nature of the SDGs. It is with this background in mind that the role of the Cooperative enterprise model in implementing SDGs in LDCs is explored in this paper. Given the principles of cooperatives that support communally inclusive and development promoting activities, the cooperatives sector has the possibility to contribute to the attainment of the SGDs.