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The success of cooperatives, values-based associations owned and managed by their own clients and hailed as an alternative business model, is highly dependent on their use of information and communications technologies (ICTs), experts say.

Boasting more than one billion global members, cooperatives have progressed significantly in the past decade, triggered by the wider availability of ICTs, such as telecommunications, computers or radio.

Argentina’s success in improving the quality of education in primary schools in low-income areas has awakened the interest of other countries in Latin America, which are keen on learning more about the experience and applying it themselves.

The plan, called Policies of Institutional Self-Evaluation for Improving the Quality of Education, was designed by UNICEF experts for 1,600 schools in five provinces in northern Argentina, the poorest part of the country.

When world leaders from over 100 countries wind up their three-day Rio+20 summit in Brazil next week, they will leave behind the shattered remains of a slew of proposals that never got off the ground.

A 30-billion-dollar Global Fund for Sustainable Development? A Financial Transactions Tax? A Sustainable Development Index? A Sustainable Development Council? A Global Fund for Education? A World Environment Organisation? An Inter-governmental Body on Tax Matters?

Europe and 79 of its former colonies have sent a strong message to the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil next week that it should use the opportunity to both fulfill past promises and deal with “new and emerging challenges”.