general

definition of cooperation

Cooperating means helping or collaborating with someone in order to provide support. Cooperating implies offering to others and, therefore, cooperation is normally associated with solidarity, altruism or generosity.

There is no single reason for cooperation, but in some way help is offered out of a feeling of empathy towards others or because human beings tend to contemplate the idea that one has to do for others what we would like others to do for U.S.

The opposite of cooperation is linked to selfish feelings and, on the other hand, non-cooperation implies a disinterest in the needs of others. When we speak of help or cooperation, we should not think exclusively of humans, as there are animals that have collaborative attitudes (usually those species that live in groups and that have patterns of coexistence, such as chimpanzees or elephants).

International cooperation

Today the world is spoken of as a global village and in this context the concept of international cooperation has been consolidated in recent decades. There are agencies and entities whose primary function is to provide support to those countries or regions whose inhabitants cannot meet their basic needs. In fact, there is the figure of the aid worker, someone who voluntarily and altruistically contributes his grain of sand in favor of a humanitarian project.

International cooperation presents multiple variants: educational, health, agricultural projects, in relation to natural disasters, with refugees, with environmental causes and a long etcetera. It is in this context where NGOs have appeared, non-profit organizations that try to alleviate the deficiencies of those groups most in need.

From the international perspective, there is a project to allocate 0.7% of the GDP of the most advanced nations to cooperation. However, the nations that meet this commitment are still very few.

Although the need to cooperate with the most disadvantaged nations is a widely shared idea, there are still a whole series of obstacles or problems in this regard: doubts regarding the money destined for aid, possible fraud, as well as the fear that the people who receive aid end up living on international aid and not on their own resources. In this sense, some consider that the best way of cooperation is summarized with the following approach: give a man a fish and you will give him food for a day, but if you really want to help him it is better if you teach him how to fish.

Photos: iStock - BraunS / Rawpixel

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