Thank you for the question.
It is quite clear that by their very nature, cooperatives are often drivers of development and innovation. They are firmly entrenched in community life. As a result, cooperatives are very attuned to people's needs and take advantage of that local expertise, which is highly valuable and specialized.
That is commonplace, which, by the way, is why Desjardins Group adopted a network-based operating style: to allow stakeholders to be as involved as possible. That being said, access to financing and capital is crucial.
To answer your second question, I would say that to foster development and innovation, you need mechanisms that make it possible to access seed money so these initiatives can bear fruit.