| abstract | - CICOPA (International Organisation of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers' Co-operatives) is the branch of the International Co-operative Alliance that promotes worker cooperatives. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, CICOPA has a membership of 57 national and regional cooperative federations in 39 countries. Its associated members are support organisations promoting cooperatives in their regions. Many of those cooperatives are worker cooperatives, businesses where the employees are the owners of the enterprise. In 2003, the then CICOPA president Rainer Schluter reported that in Europe they have seen a leap from 2,500 worker co-ops and related models in 1980, to 85,000 today, with a total membership of 1.5 million worker-owners The 2003 CICOPA General Assembly held in Oslo approved in principle the World Declaration on Cooperative Worker Ownership. The Final draft was approved by the CICOPA Executive Committee on 17 February 2004. The Declaration was then approved by the ICA General Assembly in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2005. CICOPA now has a membership of 57 organisations from 39 countries, and new national organisations of such cooperatives are continuously being established, e.g., in 2002 in Slovenia, in 2003 in South Korea, in 2004 in the USA. CICOPA's most recent general assembly took place in Singapore, on 17th October 2007.
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