Outside the U.S.

Founded in 1975, the IDEAS mission is to contribute to the sustainable economic development of poor and moderate income people. This is done primarily by providing services to microfinance institutions (MFIs) and other organizations that provide financial products and non-financial services. Read more about Institute for Development Evaluation, Assistance and Solutions (IDEAS)...

Founded in 1998, the Confederación Nacional Cooperativa de Actividades Diversas de la República Mexicana is a voluntary, collaborative effort by unions and cooperative federations to establish programs and initiatives that are mutually beneficial. In this leadership role, the Confederación strives to consolidate and strengthen the Mexican Cooperative Movement and improve the quality of life of those involved in cooperatives. Read more about Confederación Nacional Cooperativa de Actividades Diversas de la República Mexicana (Mexico; note that site is in Spanish only)...

Acumen Fund is a global non-profit venture fund which aims to serve the 4 billion people in the world who live on less than $4 a day. Acumen Fund was incorporated in 2001, with seed capital from the Rockefeller Foundation, Cisco Systems Foundation and three individual philanthropists. Areas of concentration so far have been investments in health technology, water systems, housing, and finance. Read more about Acumen Fund...

Founded in 1972, SEWA is India's first and largest trade union of informal sector workers, with a total membership of 694,551 self-employed women and a population coverage of around one million. SEWA also provides members services, often through cooperatives. As of 2002, SEWA's membership included 89 cooperatives, with a total membership of 41,393 workers. Read more about Self-Employed Women's Association...

Comprised of 152 independent local Rabobanks, their central organization – Rabobank Nederland -, and several subsidiaries, Rabobank Group is an international financial service provider administered by cooperative principles and values. Offering retail banking, wholesale banking, asset management, leasing and real estate services, Rabobank Group has nearly 60,000 employees, serving more than 9.5 million clients across 46 countries and is considered among the world’s 25 largest financial institutions in terms of Tier I capital. Read more about Rabobank...

Mondragón, located in the Basque region of Spain, is a network of 264 companies, approximately half of which are worker cooperatives. Now the largest corporation in the Basque region and the seventh largest in Spain, MCC is also the world's largest worker co-op with over 34,000 members as of the end of 2007 and total employment of over 100,000. By 2010, co-op membership is expected to grow considerably to between 72,000 and 77,000, once Eroski, a network company that is mostly located outside of Basque County, completes the cooperative conversion process. Read more about Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa...

Italy's largest umbrella group for cooperatives, La Lega promotes the interests of the cooperative sector at all levels of government, and conducts research to measure and influence public opinion about cooperatives. La Lega (or Legacoop) covers more than 17,000 cooperatives: approximately 5,000 worker co-ops, 3,000 agricultural co-ops, 2,000 consumer co-ops, 5,000 housing co-ops, 2,000 mixed-form co-ops, and hundreds of specialized co-ops in such fields as transportation and fishing (Smith 2001). Read more about La Lega...

Japan's consumer cooperative movement—the world's largest—is composed of 572 member co-operatives with a combined individual membership of 22,016,000, or thirty percent of all Japanese households. Read more about Japanese Consumers' Co-operative Union (English language site)...

Grameen Bank is a pioneer in the microfinance field and is well known for practices that have since become common throughout the world, such as village lending circles where the group guarantees payment by each individual. Having started by lending $27 to 42 villagers in 1976, the GB to date has offered credit to 3.36 million borrowers and disbursed $4.27 billion in cumulative loans. It works in 44,636 villages, operates 1,229 branches, and employs nearly 12,000 people. Read more about Grameen Bank...