History

In 1968, the German Raiffeisen Association (DRV) honoured the 150th birthday of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen with a WORLD RAIFFEISEN DAY inviting participants from all over the world. Surprised by the worldwide dimension of Raiffeisen‘s cooperative system, cooperative organizations from Europe decided to establish an association as a platform for international exchange.

On 30th March 1968, IRU was founded in Neuwied/Germany as one of the most important domanins of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen.

The memorandum of association was signed by 19 cooperative organizations from 9 countries. IRU was founded with the purpose of cultivating Raiffeisen’s ideas, propagating them in public and promoting them with modern means. It was supposed to be a network for exchange of experiences between member organizations.

On June 20, 1968, the 1st President of IRU, Count Christian von Andlau, gave a speech during the proclamation of IRU in the Paulskirche in Franfurt:

„The IRU will not be an ideological union which was founded in memory of our great predecessor (Raiffeisen), but it shall be rather something lively, something practical, something that interests and affects everybody.“

In 1989, the fall of the „Iron Curtain“ brought a new (but difficult) access to cooperatives of the Eastern Bloc states.

Under the lead of the German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Association (DGRV) the „IRU Guidelines for Cooperatives“ were published. It was the first time in the development sector that a publication was released which contained the collected knowledge of the IRU members.

The new political situation brought up a difficult economic situation and many cooperative organizations withdrew from international unions.

After a challenging period, IRU went through a phase of reorientation at the end of the 1990s towards cooperative fundamental issues such as member issues, globalization and corporate governance.

At the turn of the millennium, IRU unterwent some structural changes and renewals in the management.

On October 1st, 2010, the current President Mr. Franky Depickere, CEO of Cera in Belgium, was elected during the XIIth General Meeting in Paris, France.

The International Year of Cooperatives in 2012 gave a new impetus to IRU to rethink its own objectives. The goal was to develop a modern and attractive appearance to raise the visibility and of the organization. In 2016/17 a new logo was created which illustrates the character of IRU as an international network of idependent members. It was presented at the XIIIth General Meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland.

In 2017 the new IRU website was launched.