How are housing coops around the world meeting the Sustainable Development Goals? The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has made it a strategic priority to engage cooperatives around the globe in helping to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. ICA believes that its various sector organizations can make an important contribution towards meeting the SDGs.

Each sector can contribute in different ways. The role that cooperative housing plays in relieving poverty, inequality and insecurity of tenure, among other challenges is important in meeting many of the SDGs.

The Board of Directors of CHI has committed to playing an active role in identifying which of the SDGs housing can help in meeting and what targets the housing sector can set in order to achieve that purpose.

There are 17 SDGs altogether. You can find a description of all the goals on this website. You will find that several of the SDGs are relevant to your priorities as cooperative housing organizations. We have identified the goals that housing coops can most effectively focus on. We describe them below.

Working towards meeting these particular SDGs is an important part of CHI’s strategic plan. But this is only possible if you, our members and allies, are actively involved.  You are the organizations that deliver coop housing solutions.

Here are ten Sustainable Development Goals CHI is proposing that housing coops focus on. In each case, we begin with the UN target that housing coops can help meet followed by a suggested target specific to housing cooperatives. Finally, we propose indicators for housing coops – how they can measure progress towards meeting each target.

ICA is preparing a survey that will ask about data relevant to the SDGs that members already collect. When we have that information, we can discuss what we know about each target, and its indicators. This will tell us how we measure progress towards them.

We are counting on your support for this important initiative. In the meantime, we would be very interested to receive any comments and questions from you on the proposed goals, targets and indicators.