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 The
International Coffee Organization (ICO) is the main intergovernmental
organization for coffee, bringing together producing and consuming
countries to tackle the challenges facing the world coffee
sector through international cooperation.
It makes a practical contribution to the world coffee economy
and to improving standards of living in developing countries
by:
- Enabling government representatives to exchange views
and coordinate coffee policies and priorities at regular
high-level meetings;
- Improving coffee quality through the Coffee Quality-Improvement
Programme;
- Initiating coffee development projects to improve quality
and marketing, and combat diseases;
- Promoting coffee consumption through innovative market
development activities;
- Working closely with the private sector through a 16 strong
Private Sector Consultative Board (PSCB) which tackles issues
such as food safety;
- Encouraging a sustainable coffee economy and environmental
standards through studies and expert panels;
- Providing objective and comprehensive information and
research on the world coffee market;
- Ensuring transparency in the coffee market through statistics,
with 200,000 records processed each year;
- Producing market reports, econometric models, in-depth
economic studies and country coffee profiles.
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The ICO was set up in London in 1963 under the auspices of
the United Nations because of the great economic importance
of coffee. It has administered six International Coffee Agreements
(ICAs), the most recent of which entered into force provisionally
on 1 October 2001. Its Members include coffee exporting and
importing countries, and it functions through the International
Coffee Council, the Executive Board, the Private Sector Consultative
Board, the Executive Director and a small Secretariat.
Coffee is one of the world's largest traded commodities produced
in more than 60 countries, providing a livelihood for some
25,000,000 coffee farming families around the world. Many
of these countries are heavily dependent on coffee, which
can account for over 75% of their total export earnings. Among
consumers coffee is a universally popular drink, with over
US$70 billion in retail sales a year. ICO exporting Members
account for over 97% of world coffee production and its importing
Members are responsible for 68% of world coffee consumption.
http://www.ico.org/
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