International Cooperative Day is an annual celebration of the cooperative movement observed on the first Saturday in July since 1923 by the International Cooperative Alliance.
On 16 December 1992, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed in resolution 47/90 "the first Saturday of July 1995 to be International Day of Cooperatives, marking the centenary of the establishment of the International Cooperative Alliance."[1] Since 1995 the United Nations' International Day of Cooperatives has been observed jointly alongside International Cooperative Day.[2]
Cooperatives around the world celebrate the day in various fashions and each year the organising institutions agree on a theme for the celebrations. The 2010 theme was Cooperative Enterprise Empowers Women, to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action.[3]