Springer Cooperatives and Social Innovation: Experiences from the Asia Pacific Region

This book discusses social innovations by cooperatives from the Asia and Pacific region. Social innovations emerge when the state and market in developing countries find it difficult to solve problems such as poverty, hunger, ill health, poor education systems, inadequate drinking water and poor sanitation. These countries also face barriers to economic growth such as climate change, poor governance, unequal opportunities and social exclusion. This volume therefore addresses the following questions. What are the distinctive features of social innovations by cooperatives? How social innovations bring in changes in the process and outcome of development?  After presenting theories of social innovation and a critical review of cooperatives and social innovation, the book presents 15 chapters on social innovations by cooperatives in the Asia Pacific region. These social innovations are related to health insurance, community based tourism, disaster response, climate smart agriculture, use of social media for youth empowerment, training for the emergence of second-line leaders in cooperatives,  social inclusion through innovative finance, profitable marketing of organic produce to strengthen economic status of small farmers, digital auction and value addition for  income security of farmer members, collaboration between cooperative members and workers for the mutual benefit, worker cooperatives, women leadership and participation, building union-cooperative partnership in finance and  rating of cooperatives to promote transparency and accountability. A chapter on innovative services of cooperatives during the time of Covid19 is also included. This volume will be quite significant for co-operators, researchers, teachers, practitioners and policy-makers at the global level. The theme is relevant for international development community and national cooperatives with concern for their communities, which is the seventh cooperative principle of International Cooperative Alliance and the Sustainable Development Goal of the UN. Review “Social innovation has been of late widely discussed by scholars; but most of the literature has addressed the nonprofits or the third sector at large. This book is a unique collection of theoretical papers written specifically for this purpose as well as cases of social innovations by cooperatives to solve problems at the local and higher levels from the region presented in the ICA-Asia Pacific research conference on ‘Cooperatives: The key solution for social innovation’ .  A wide range of social innovations in the areas of finance, health, agriculture, climate change, consumer, marketing and worker welfare, empowerment of women and youth are covered. I believe this volume will be an important addition to the literature on cooperatives in the Asia Pacific region.” -                      Prof. Akira Kurimoto, Chairperson of the ICA Asia Pacific Research Committee and Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan.  “This book on ‘Cooperatives and Social Innovation’ is the first of its kind. The book discusses the new concept of social innovation and brings out the social innovation practices in cooperatives. The volume consists of papers that have undertaken an in-depth analysis of cooperatives particularly in the area of social innovation. The book covers interesting areas on social innovations in cooperatives relating to finance, grading of cooperatives, social media to promote cooperative movement, tourism, producer, consumer, climate smart agriculture, health insurance and women leadership. The book will be of great value at the global as well as national level cooperatives. NCUI recognizes and appreciates the efforts put in by the editors Professors Rajasekhar, Manjula and ParanJothi.” -          Dr. Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, President, National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI); Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), Government of India.  “ Scholarly studies on the subject of Coopera