Lessening the inequality among people and ensures the ecosystem balance is a key priority in Inclusive Development (ID). Its cover economic, social, ecological and citizen rights aspect. Inclusive development is a universal term that’s not only for emerging and developing countries but also for developed one. For Indonesia, lessening the inequality is a primary concern when one of founding fathers lay the economic foundation. In fact, the Gini Ratio of Indonesia still show a large gap, pointing 0.394 in 2016.
Cooperative, as historically proven, offers such alternative: playing important economic and social roles in developed as well as developing countries. However, it often becomes an ‘invisible citizen’ compared to corporation. Cooperative concept of ‘community self-help’ can be used to tackle poverty, raising prosperity, implementing democratic participation as well as equality. Therefore, cooperative become an important issue towards inclusive development.
Cooperatives in Indonesia, of course, are diverse. This research will focus on the cooperative movement as a mean of ‘kooperasi’ to draw a distinction with ‘koperasi’ which commonly used by Indonesian. The cooperative movement (kooperasi) is a ‘self-organised’ cooperative that put ideology above profit. This research aims to take a closer look to the contributions of kooperasi to inclusive development, and how policy and innovation influence the existence of cooperatives.
