CCA works with local partner organizations to help smallholder farmers, traders and producers establish and strengthen co-operative and credit union enterprises that can provide needed goods and services they cannot access or develop on their own. Members work together to manage their co-operatives democratically, to achieve economies of scale that lower costs and grow their income.

Co-ops train and educate members, mobilize savings and issue loans to start small businesses. They create jobs, establish gender equity, reach out to vulnerable groups and steward the environment. Members re-invest surpluses to sustain their co-operative enterprises and the benefits they accrue into the future. In time, families and their communities are less vulnerable to the conditions that produce poverty.

CCA supports and strengthens co-op federations which provide services to member co-operatives and work with governments to enact co-op-friendly laws and regulations.

Through CCA, Canada's credit unions and co-operatives share their time, knowledge and financial resources to establish co-operatives that build a better world.

History

CCA is a proud part of the international co-operative movement, a powerful global force of over one billion co-operative and credit union members creating lasting prosperity in their communities. CCA have over 40 years of experience designing and implementing projects to build sustainable livelihoods and reduce poverty. In the early 1960s, CCA partnered with the Canadian government to develop co-operatives in Canada's North, during a time of great upheaval and difficulty for Canada's Inuit people. When many African countries were gaining their independence, co-operative and credit union people from Canada helped develop co-operatives on an informal basis, and a formal international development program started in the early 1970s. Later that same decade, Canada's credit unions formally delegated their international development work to CCA.

Vision: A Better World.

Mission: To establish and grow co-operatives internationally that build a better world.