On April 1st 2018,  Ahsan Ali Thakur visited the Ministry of Economy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Ahsan is Manager of Human Resources & Communications for Karachi Cooperative Housing Societies Union in Pakistan. He is also Chairperson of ICA-Asia & Pacific Committee on Youth Cooperation (ICYC) and a board member of the International Cooperative Alliance and Vice-President of the Global Youth Network. Ahsan was received by Mr. Saeed Mubarak Bin Amro, Director of the Cooperative Department at the Ministry of Economy, and his team, Mr. Ahmed Shrief, Head of Section Monitoring and Controller Cooperative Dept.; Mr. Wali Al Khairi and Mr. Muhammad Yusri, both Finance Controllers in the Cooperative Department.

Ahsan presented cooperative facts and figures in addition to explaining how the cooperative movement began in Pakistan. He also presented the book Cooperation in Cooperatives: Future Solution to Socio-Economic Problems as a memento and for sharing cooperative knowledge.

Further discussion took place with sharing of ideas as well as prospects and success stories of cooperative development in the UAE.  Everyone agreed that further discussion and knowledge sharing should be the way to move forward between the two countries. Ahsan invited his hosts to visit Pakistan for further exchanges and knowledge sharing.

He also informed them about the second ICA-AP Committee on Youth Cooperation Youth Summit in August in the Philippines. The Summit’s purpose is to engage and encourage youth to start cooperative enterprises. Loomio, a worker-owned cooperative social enterprise that develops open source software, was at last year’s summit in Bali, Indonesia. This year, the Youth Summit is looking for entrepreneurs (between 18-35 years of age) from the cooperative sector to speak at the conference. Please contact us at info@chi.coop if you’re interested or have any suggestions.