The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental Co-operative Federation or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. It was founded in 1895 as a result of actions by Edward Vansittart Neale and the Christian Socialists. The ICA maintains the currently accepted version of the Rochdale Principles of Cooperation and the Statement on the Co-operative Identity.1 ICA represents 224 co-operative federations and organisations in 87 countries.
In 2006 the ICA published the first major index of the world's largest co-operative and mutual enterprises, the ICA Global 300,2 which demonstrated the scale of the co-operative movement globally.
The flag
ICA adopted its original rainbow flag in 1925, with the seven colors symbolizing unity in diversity and the power of light, enlightenment, and progress.3. The new flag was adopted in 2001 at the ICA congress in Seoul, South Korea, to avoid confusion with other rainbow flags, several of which had become very well known in the 20th century. The present flag shows the ICA seven-color logo on a white background. The logo depicts a quarter rainbow with a flock of stylized doves of peace scattering from the top and the letters ICA underneath. The rainbow has only six stripes (red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue) and the seventh color (purple) appears in the lettering under the rainbow. The flag exists in four different versions showing the ICA acronym in different languages (ACI in Spanish and French, IGB in German, and МКА in Russian).
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