International Cooperative Alliance

The ICA was established in 1895, and held its first congress in London the same year. In 1896, the ICA confirmed it was politically neutral. In 1937, its Co-operative Principles were reviewed for the first time at the 15th World Co-operative Congress in Paris; amendments followed in 1966.

In 1995, the ICA adopted a revised Statement on the Co-operative Identity, which states that a co-operative is an "autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise."

In 2006, the ICA published the first major index of the world's largest cooperative and mutual enterprises, the ICA Global 300. Since 2011, together with the European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (EURICSE), the ICA Global 300 developed into the World Cooperative Monitor, which collects economic, organizational, and social data about cooperatives worldwide, including top 300 rankings and sectoral analysis. Since 2018, each edition of the Monitor has had a theme; in 2022 the theme was digitalization and cooperative identity.

Since 2014, the ICA has participated in the G20 Engagement Groups in various task forces, discussions, and official documents. In 2018, the ICA created the International Cooperative Entrepreneurship Think Tank (ICETT) to study and discuss entrepreneurship in cooperative enterprises. In 2020, the ICA established the Cooperative G20 Working Group.

The ICA also coordinates celebrations of the International Day of Cooperatives.

In 2020, the ICA introduced "A People-Centered Path to a Second Cooperative Decade", its strategic plan for 2020-2030. This plan was developed following consultations with members and replaced the earlier "Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade".