Living in a global community in a globalized economy, it is mandatory that local development processes are sensitive to market currents. Being a development process committed to a broad and challenging vision, “building a new social order based on co-operative principles and values,” SANASA has always been present in development networks and platforms both locally and internationally, building partnerships as well as sharing and learning from innovations and perspectives. The leader of the SANASA Movement has taken up key positions in several international cooperative and banking forums such as the Asian Council of Credit Unions (ACCU), World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU), International Co-operative Bankers’ Association (ICBA), International Cooperative Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF) and the Banking With The Poor Network. In addition, SANASA has been a member of many cooperative and rural finance networks, such as APRACA (Asia Pacific Rural Agriculture Credit Association) and the ProxFin financial cooperative network of Desjardins, Canada. SANASA’s poverty alleviation model has been used as a case study in many development studies courses in Canada, USA and UK. SANASA has always been committed to share its experience in international learning forums such as the first microcredit summit held in Washington DC in 1996, the first European Microfinance Platform, the International Cooperative Summit, the Inclusive Finance Forum of the World Bank and the Knowledge Forum of the IFC.
SANASA international, with the partnership of SANASA Campus and the rest of the SANASA Group, continues to nurture this culture by sharing the latest developments of the SANASA Movement with the global development community world through social media and other forums.
The International Symposium is organized to examine pertinent development issues in depth with the participation of the policy makers, investors, practitioners, and scholars.
Through SANASA Campus, a higher education Institute registered with the University Grants Commission, SANASA extends its rich, practical expertise to many other organizations to help them in their journey towards a more inclusive society. The training modules of the Cooperative and Community Services Centre of the SANASA Campus are designed to cover a wide spectrum of community empowerment, with special emphasis on the South Asian region. The academic section of the Campus is geared to empower graduates with a holistic outlook and approach to sustainable development in the field of banking and finance, risk management and insurance, regional planning, and management.
Despite different policy regimes and contradictory and rigid legal blueprints, SANASA has been resilient and growing since its revitalization in 1978, through a 30-year long conflict, and one of the worst natural disasters, the Asian tsunami of 2004. SANASA International hopes to extend the learning of SANASA to organizations and young cooperators around the world interested in knowing how we do what we do and the innovative approaches we adopted along the way.