STRESSING the need to develop a person’s full potential since its people are a country’s most important resource, a government agency that regulates the cooperatives sector is bent on effecting social change through peace and prosperity and in accordance with the core principle of sustainable development.

“Cooperatives put people at the center of development processes where money is used not to make more money but enhance the well-being of the poor, the oppressed, and downtrodden—exactly the mandate of President [Rodrigo] Duterte,” Orlando Ravanera, chairman of the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), says.