Dear friends, I have recently started following the digital divide discussion on this excellent list with great interest. However one of the sectors which is noticeably absent from the debate is the cooperative sector. I hope you won't mind if I briefly address this issue. I work for Poptel (www.poptel.net), a UK based employee-owned Internet cooperative. Recently, together with the US National Cooperative Business Association (www.ncba.org), we won one of the seven new Internet Top Level Domains - .coop. Our application was supported by the UN recognised International Co-operative Alliance (www.coop.org). Winning .coop was a tremendous achievement that has delighted cooperatives the world over. For the first time we will have an Internet identity which reflects the unique character of cooperative business. However we are aware that not all cooperatives can take advantage of .coop. Consequently a key feature of the .coop TLD is the creation of a Digital Divide Fund to support initiatives amongst less well resourced coops. As far as I am aware we are the only new TLD proposing such a fund. We expect .coop to be launched early in the second half of this year. Many of you will know that the coop sector is substantial. ICA statistics show that there are 750,000 cooperatives around the world with nearly 760m members (http://www.coop.org/statistics.html). They operate in all economic sectors and range in size from small worker owned coops to large retail, agricultural and financial institutions. Although they vary tremendously in scale, outlook and activities, coops share a common set of values and principles and at heart are people-centred businesses. That is to say they are founded on human need and self-organisation rather than the desire to create shareholder value. Of course not all cooperatives are great businesses, but the best are often those that combine successful commercial activities with their social and membership responsibilities. For many years cooperatives have played a substantial role in international development. For instance, at the institutional level NCBA alone is responsible for disbursing $80m of US aid funding and has around 500 workers in the field. Meanwhile at the operational level cooperatives like Amul, the union of dairy coops in Gujarat (www.amul.com), provides the livlihoods for 2m of the poorest people on earth. Amul is also the premier B2C e-commerce brand in India - a fascinating juxtapostion. In each of the four areas for action identified by the DOT Force report cooperatives could (and maybe already do) make a substantial contribution. Firstly they are often significant economic actors with an interest in public policy and regulatory issues - though not necessarily in this area, yet. Secondly they can act as demand aggregators supporting actions to overcome issues of remote and rural access to telecoms infra-structure. Indeed co-ops played a hugely significant role in overcoming problems of rural access to telecommunications and other utilities in the United States in the early part of the 20th century (www.nrtc.org and www.nreca.org). Thirdly one of the key principles of cooperation is education and the development of human capacity. Finally, coops are about wealth creation and social infra-structure in local communities. They trade and they have members, therefore many will have a direct interest in the development of new communications tools and in e-business. For all of these reasons the cooperative sector should have an important role to play. My colleagues and I would be very interested to hear your views either publicly or off-list. With best regards, Malcolm Corbett Corporate Affairs Director P O P T E L The Co-operative ISP with the mission to Connect * Inform * Empower Building .coop - The Trusted Alternative to .com T. +44 20 7284 6900 W. http://www.poptel.net ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
