CO-OPERATIVES AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

That this House welcomes the launch of the Co-operative College pamphlet Target 2015 halving world poverty; notes that a consortium of 10 co-operative organisations headed by the Co-operative College have entered a strategic grant agreement with the Department for International Development to add their weight to the fight against poverty, and the achievement of the millennium Development Goals; and further notes that international co-operators will be campaigning to persuade all world governments to sign up to the international finance facility, founded upon long-term commitments from the richest countries to double the amount of development aid for the years to 2015 from ú50 billion a year to ú100 billion a year.