A time of change
This is a time of change for Tanzania’s cooperatives.
Cooperatives in Tanzania have a long history, dating back to the late 1920s. In
times past, they played a vital role in rural and urban economic and social
development of the country.
However, more recently the image has become a negative one. For many
people in Tanzania, coops are seen as stuck in the past, unable to cope with
modern economic realities. Far from being models of member self-
empowerment, their image is tarnished by poor administration and leadership,
poor business practice, and by corruption.
Cooperatives developed historically – in Tanzania as elsewhere in the world –
because they performed a valuable role. That role remains as relevant as ever
today. Without cooperatives, small producers are left with almost no form of
collective organisation, at an immense disadvantage when taking their products
or crops to the market. Without savings and credit cooperatives, many poor
people have no safe home for their savings and nowhere to go for loans. Coops
can also provide solutions through collective action in other areas, too, such as
fisheries, forestry, minerals and housing.
If they are to meet their potential in the future, however, a comprehensive
transformation of cooperatives in Tanzania will be necessary. The task is to
focus back on the key cooperative principle: that coops are owned and
controlled by their own members. The purpose of coops is, above all, to fulfil
their members’ economic and social needs.
To achieve their goals, cooperatives need to be commercially viable enterprises,
able to survive and prosper in the marketplace. To be sustainable, cooperatives
have to be run on a business-like footing. In contrast to other businesses,
however, the rewards from their trading activity are available to be shared
between all the members, on a collective basis.
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