Abstract
Cooperatives offer great potential in providing for common needs and aspirations. In the vast available literature on their experiential practices, they provide for systemic paths for development trajectories and address ‘intersecting inequalities’. Yet, being at the same time association and enterprise, they face collective action challenges that need special attention. In the first part, the document discusses the place that the Post 2015 Millennium Development Framework (MDGs and pre- SDGs) could give to cooperatives. Selected cases are brought in to highlight what cooperatives offer in terms of approach to sustainable, peaceful and inclusive development. A discussion on cooperatives’ potential and challenges for the Post 2015 Development goals (SDGs) follows. Document presented at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Expert Group Meeting on Cooperatives in 2014 in Nairobi, Kenya.