By Bakah Derick
The General Manager of the North West Cooperative Association (NWCA) limited has been elected into the Executive Committee of the Consumer Co-operatives Worldwide (CCW). The only Cameroonian and African Waindim Timothy Ntam was elected into the eight-man executive committee during the General Assembly of CCW in Seville Spain last June 19, 2022.
"I am highly honoured and thankful to CCW delegates for the confidence on my humble self. I also fully understand how challenging the office will be particularly as I would be representing and defending cooperative movements not only for my country Cameroon but for the entire African Continent in the Executive Committee." Timothy Ntam reacted
Elected for a three year mandate from June 2022 to November 2025, Waindim Timothy Ntam shall work together with Hector Jacquet – Board Member, FACC Argentina / Cooperative Obrera, Marjaana Saarikoski – Director, Cooperative Affairs, SOK Finland, Marco Pedroni – President, ANCC/Coop Italy, Toshio Tsuchiya – President, Coop Japan, Jeong hee Kim – Chairwoman, iCoop Korea, Ismail Kamarudin – Board member, ANGKASA Malaysia and Dr. Illia Gorokhovskyi – Chairman, Coop Ukraine in the management of the world structure.
The native of Kom Boyo Division in the North West has affirmed his readiness for the new responsibility.
" I have a wide experience in cooperatives after having put in about a quarter of a century in this domain in Cameroon. I understand things might be slightly different but cooperative principles are the same worldwide paving the way for an opportunity to learn and broaden my knowledge in cooperatives. Again there arw old brooms in the committee like the President Prof Stefanov. New timers like us will have the chance to learn from them as we strive at improving on the livelihoods of our members worldwide." He said
According to the NWCA General Manager, his presence at the CCW will be useful not just for his institution but also for Cameroon as a country.
"My election into the Executive Committee of CCW is a diplomatic achievement for the country and shall increase the visibility of cooperatives in Cameroon in general and the North West Cooperative Association Ltd in particular. Cooperatives and their goods and services will be more exposed to the international market than ever before even as within the African continent. The world is currently going through severe economic crises with the drastic hikes in prices. This could be mitigated through the encouragement and strengthening of consumer cooperatives to benefit from interco – operative cooperation within and out of our countries and/or continent in relation to the main purpose of consumer cooperatives that to offer goods and services at lowest cost to customer – owners." Timothy Ntam concluded.
Prior to the election of the Executive Committee members, www.hilltopvoices.com gathered that the President of the Central Co-operative Union Bulgaria, Prof. Peter Stefanov was re-elected CCW President. He will be assisted by two Vice-Presidents: Marco Pedroni – President of ANCC/Coop Italia and Ismail Kamarudin – Board Member of ANGKASA, Malaysia.
Speaking before his re-election, Prof Peter Stefanov spelled out his objectives aimed at making CCW more active and a model for others to emulate. According to him, a survey to collect vital data from all national members in order to better assess the socio-economic significance of consumer co-operatives around the world by inquiring about the number of co-operative members, turnover, certain economic parameters such as number of outlets, type of activity, and others will be his first major activity.
The second he said will be a comparative analysis of national co-operative legislation in the different CCW member countries in view of extracting the successful examples, aspects and specificities and compiling them into a unitary model to be used as inspiration for its harmonization internationally.
Thirdly, Prof. Stefanov proposed that CCW focus on facilitating closer co-operation among members in two interconnected areas: Coop2Coop business relations, especially through an e-commerce platform and co-op education through the establishment of a Co-op Academy – an interactive and dynamic network of co-op academic institutions with programs and courses of co-op education and training. This would allow the co-op business and co-op academy to mutually complement each other, and both are important in attracting the youth.
Reflections during the General assembly also focused onissues such as ethical e-commerce, rethinking the supply chain and modelling it into a food system, IT solutions in the co-op business, establishing direct co-op global supply chains and establishing a network of co-op academic institutions. These ideas shall form the basis for the 2023 work plan and multi-annual strategy.