by Muriel Russell
The most simple and direct definition of a cooperative is the following: A cooperative society is an association of shareholders, usually described as members, who, as individuals, have contributed a fund of capital to be employed under their collective direction for trading purposes in providing for their needs as producers or as consumers.
Cooperatives are not theoretical networks, they are economic units bound by rules to be accepted and obeyed by members. They are also subject to the laws of the land, not only those controlling commerce, production and community conduct but specific Acts of Parliament designed to protect cooperative societies and their members. Every member has rights, not the least of which is to share in the surplus, take part in the society's business and policy-making by way of attendance at meetings, to use one's vote and to offer oneself for election to office. Besides these rights a member has responsibilities i.e. to support the cooperative in every way possible, either by un-stinted and honest work in producer or service coops or by maximum purchasing if it is a consumer society. This means high standards of loyalty and caring towards one's fellow (perhaps in the case of women-only coops) sister cooperators.
All this needs confidence, trust and tenacity of purpose. It cannot be achieved without education, availability of information and, for women, facilities to sustain their normal family responsibilities. All these matters may appear unnecessarily exacting to those thinking of assisting in the development by Muriel Russell of cooperatives among women, often illiterate and living in areas quite remote from cities and governments, or in urban districts where poverty is rife. Surely, it will be argued, a few women with a common talent or skill need not be subjected to such apparent rigid constitutions. Why not provide them with accommodation, some finance, raw materials, tuition and perhaps an extension or volunteer social worker to take on the administrative responsibility. Such an arrangement provides the groundwork for an eventual cooperative but it is not a cooperative. History is strewn with the ashes of these attempted cooperatives. A coop cannot be given to a group; sooner or later apathy and lack of commitment will shrivel the attempt.
Education, training and advice are all necessary and the more competent agencies can help the better. But such organisations must respect the autonomy of a coop and not take over the 'driving seat,' There are few trades or services which cannot be successfully organised within cooperatives. Whatever the form of cooperative, they present important income-generating possibilities, relief and assistance in the burden of family or domestic task and give an outlet for women to develop their own individually and to contribute to the community as a whole.
Women and Cooperatives in Africa: The Role of NGOs
by Anna Mupawaenda
NGOs have become a significant force in development because governments alone cannot shoulder the development process. Tribute has often been paid to NGOs' flexibility, lack of bureaucracy and closeness to the people, and both North and South NGOs have a role to play in the women's cooperative movement. They could serve as a catalyst, to help the women's cooperative movement to define its needs and to ensure that projects or components of projects respond to these needs. Support is necessary for developing credit systems like revolving funds, management ability, marketing skills, etc. Dissemination and transfer of technology through provision of information and training or women are vital in order to make the women's coop movement more effective.
However, although NGOs have a role to play in development, there are some major problems and shortcomings in the way in which NGOs currently give aid to women's programmes. Firstly there are many types of NGOs including the international, regional, sub-regional and national. They vary in size, commitment, expertise, organisational capacity and hence ability to implement wider programmes. They vary in ideological background, at one extreme belonging to charitable traditions and at the other to militant ones. Some NGOs, both international and indigenous, have been accused of using people in their own interests. Other NGOs are too hierarchical in structure to be able to implement cooperative projects successfully.
In many countries the NGO sector is characterised by many small-sized projects, numerous executive agencies and a diversity of fields of activity. Projects and other assistance are based on insufficient field knowledge, their operating costs are too high, they pay insufficient attention to local initiatives and training to leaders. Lessons learned are not easily transferred from one NGO to another, the more so since NGOs have not systematically analysed their experiences.
Some Northern NGOs make it plain that their funding is allowed to be used in certain areas of development and not other areas. This often contradicts certain approaches to development e.g., integrated participator approaches that call for co-ordinated development of people around their needs and not needs as perceived by outsiders. Resentment has been growing among NGOs in developing countries about the alleged patronising or condescending attitudes and demands of some of their counterparts based in the industrialised world. The feeling has been exacerbated by the fact that northern NGOs often have more money and better facilities and some southern NGOs cannot exist without heavy funding from the North.
There has also been a tendency among planners and some NGOs to see African women in Western terms; that is, essentially as domestic workers whose primary responsibility should be in the home and not in the fields. Women have been left out of agricultural extension services despite the major role they play in food crop production and contribution of cash crop labours even where there are heads of households. They have been provided with extension programmes exclusively oriented toward domestic science and home economics. Even indigenous NGOs have been guilty of using this domestic science approach to women's development. Although home economics may be of significant social and economic value, there is need to improve upon women's strictly economic functions, particularly women's role in agricultural production by developing women's agricultural and food crops in their own right.
All these problems must be borne in mind in making recommendations and enlisting the help of NGOs. NGO assistance should be looked upon only as a means for accelerating change and development and ultimately the Cooperative Movement should move towards self-reliance. Nevertheless there are a number of immediate steps which could be taken with the help of NGOs in building up a self-reliant Women's Cooperative Movement.
Firstly, changes are needed in the funding procedures of NGOs. Most grants and loans are made for too short a period: two to three years is not long enough to develop cooperative abilities and capacities and produce any concrete result. Agencies making longer term funding commitments must develop to accept evaluation criteria other than simple quantitative measurement of the outcome, taking into account the learning process of the participants.
Secondly, lack of working capital due to poor resource base, ignorance of available credit facilities or inaccessible discriminatory credit facilities, has caused a lot of problems for women cooperators. NGOs could advise coop members on the available credit facilities and give them information on how credit systems function. For example NGOs could raise funds to be administered as loans by a cooperating bank.
Thirdly, there is a need for international networking to bring together NGOs to share and exchange knowledge and experiences on national, regional and world levels. A directory setting out NGOs interested in assisting women cooperatives should be compiled to give the Women Cooperative Movement in Africa access to information concerning NGO assistance available. Regional workshops should be held for women cooperators to exchange experiences and knowledge should be promoted.
Finally, a conference on collaboration and cooperation between the women cooperative movement and NGOs, including funding NGOs, should be convened. Such a conference will contribute towards making women in cooperatives visible. From this a Strategy Plan should be prepared for the Women Cooperative Movement in Africa mapping out the way forward for the next five years. A further conference should be held after two years to evaluate the implementation of the strategy plan.
Source: All Are Not Equal: African Women in Cooperatives, Institute for Action Alternatives (IFAA) 23 Bevenden Street London Nl 6BN, U.K.