Cooperation at scale doesn’t happen by accident. “It happens because people organized to solve a problem the market wouldn’t, and policymakers adopted laws that provided people this opportunity,” NCBA CLUSA president and CEO Doug O’Brien said last week.
O’Brien’s remarks came during a UN side event seeking to build on the momentum of the Year of Cooperatives by advancing concrete policies and programs that bolster sustainable development and build a fair, inclusive future.
Read his written remarks below, or watch the recording. O’Brien’s remarks begin at 32:15.
Your excellency, distinguished colleagues, partners, and friends both in the room and online. Good morning, and thank you for being here. I am Doug O’Brien, the president and CEO of the National Cooperative Business Association, the umbrella association for cooperatives here in the U.S. where more than 1 in 3 people are members of co-ops. It’s a pleasure to moderate this conversation at a moment when cooperatives and the broader social and solidarity economy are receiving increased attention.
Coming out of the World Social Summit, the Doha Political Declaration, and the International Year of Cooperatives, there’s been a real shift in how cooperatives are recognized. These declarations are important because they don’t just acknowledge cooperatives—they recognize them as practical tools for expanding decent work, building inclusive value chains, growing local prosperity, and empowering communities. Cooperatives work because they are businesses that are owned, controlled and benefit the people who use them.
This recognition signals that cooperatives aren’t a side note to development policy—they’re part of the core strategy.
From the perspective as a director of the Board of the International Cooperative Alliance, and from my role as president and CEO of the National Cooperative Business Association here in the U.S., that recognition matters. Declarations and commitments do real work. They raise visibility. They align priorities. They help create the political and institutional space for cooperatives to be taken seriously.
In that sense, they are absolutely necessary.
But they are not sufficient.
Here’s the reality we’re trying to change. According to the latest global data from the World Inequality Lab and the World Bank, the richest 10% of people receive about 52% of global income, while the poorest half receive roughly 8%. When you look at wealth, the imbalance is even sharper: the bottom half of the world holds about 2% of global wealth, while the top 10% holds around 76%.
That’s not a rounding error. That’s a structural problem.
And it shows up everywhere—within countries, between countries, and across generations. It’s also deeply gendered. Based on data from UN Women and the ILO, women globally earn about 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. Progress is happening, but far too slowly for people living with the consequences.
So when we talk about moving from commitments to action, we’re not talking about process. We’re talking about outcomes.
Inequality is not abstract—and neither are the solutions.
We know the cooperative model works. Cooperatives and mutuals serve more than 1 billion members worldwide, operate around 3 million enterprises, and support roughly 10% of global employment. In sector after sector—finance, food systems, housing, energy, care—cooperatives are already delivering at scale.
Cooperatives aren’t experimental—they’re proven.
But scale alone isn’t enough. The real test is whether cooperatives are being fully used—and properly supported—as tools to reduce inequality, expand access to opportunity, and build resilience in a world facing overlapping economic, environmental, and social shocks.
You can see what that looks like in practice in the United States. Rural electric cooperatives are a powerful example. According to data from the national electric cooperative sector, electric co-ops provide affordable, reliable power to about 42 million people, primarily in rural areas. And their footprint tells an important story: more than 90% of U.S. counties classified as having persistent poverty fall within electric cooperative service territories.
That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because communities organized to solve a problem the market wouldn’t—and kept ownership and accountability local. And policymakers adopted laws that provided people this opportunity.
Credit unions tell a similar story in financial services. Based on data from the National Credit Union Administration, more than 142 million Americans are credit union members, and credit unions hold over $2.3 trillion in assets. Because they are owned by their members, that scale shows up in better outcomes—lower loan rates, fairer fees, and access to credit for families who would otherwise be shut out.
That difference matters. Federal Reserve and Federal Trade Commission data show that a typical two-week payday loan—priced at about $15 per $100 borrowed—carries an annual percentage rate of roughly 391%. The Federal Reserve reports that about 6% of U.S. adults rely on payday loans, pawn loans, auto-title loans, or similar high-cost products, with use concentrated among lower-income households. Research from the Center for Responsible Lending estimates that more than $2 billion a year is drained from borrowers in payday loan fees alone.
Cooperative finance doesn’t just offer an alternative—it changes the math.
Co-ops know: ownership matters—and it shows up in people’s wallets.
All of this brings us back to the moment we’re in now. The Doha Political Declaration, the International Year of Cooperatives, and a growing body of policy commitments have set the table. The case has been made. The evidence is there.
Now the question is whether we meet this moment.
Do we translate recognition into investment? Do we turn policy language into implementation? Do we design partnerships that actually scale what works?
We don’t need more proof—what we need is follow-through.
That’s why today’s conversation matters. This panel brings together leaders from across public institutions and from the cooperative movement itself—people who are focused not on theory, but on results. The goal isn’t to restate why cooperatives matter. It’s to get practical about how we use them better, support them smarter, and deliver the outcomes this moment demands.
With that, I’m looking forward to the discussion—and to hearing from distinguished colleagues on how cooperatives and SSE enterprises can help us meet this moment, together.