ILO's work on cooperatives in Africa

  1. Publication

    Working Paper No. 8 - Cooperatives and development: a case of citizen economic empowerment in Botswana

    01 February 2010

    The cooperative movement in Botswana has been expected to serve a broad set of socio-economic and political objectives. The government perceives cooperatives as a means for empowering its people to own businesses and in the process acquire entrepreneurial skills that can enable them to participate in social and economic development. In Botswana, cooperatives were established by the government immediately after independence and operated within the interests of the Government, as outlined in the Cooperative Societies Law.

  2. Publication

    Working Paper No. 19 - The cooperative model for the delivery of home based care services for people living with HIV

    01 January 2010

    Home-based care (HBC) is an innovative approach to providing a comprehensive continuum of prevention, care, treatment and support services to meet the needs of people living with HIV in settings that have resource limitations. HBC calls for partnership among family members, health care workers, health facilities, local communities, community-based organizations (CBOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people living with HIV (PLHIV).

  3. Publication

    Working Paper No. 6 - Fair trade - fair futures : the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union scholarship programme for orphan and vulnerable children

    01 September 2009

    CoopAFRICA Working Paper No. 6 - with ILO/AIDS, Series on HIV/AIDS impact mitigation in the world of work – responses from the social economy

  4. Publication

    Working Paper No. 5 - Social economy approaches to mainstreaming HIV/AIDS : the case of the Kasojetua youth group

    01 September 2009

    CoopAFRICA Working Paper No. 5 - with ILO/AIDS, Series on HIV/AIDS impact mitigation in the world of work – responses from the social economy

  5. Publication

    Working Paper No. 3 - African cooperatives and the financial crisis

    01 September 2009

    Considers how institutions from the social economy, particularly cooperatives and cooperative financial institutions throughout the world and in Sub-Saharan Africa, are managing the current crisis and how they may be contributing to impact mitigation.

  6. Publication

    Working Paper No. 2 - Enterprise future lies in cooperation : entrepreneur cooperatives in Africa : an introductory paper

    01 September 2009

    CoopAFRICA Working Paper No. 2

  7. Publication

    Working Paper No. 7 - Cooperatives in Africa: The age of reconstruction - synthesis of a survey in nine African countries

    01 August 2009

    Many governments have adopted a pro-cooperative attitude, mirrored in updated legislation and functioning cooperative departments. In some cases, the regulating policy may be felt as meddlesome by certain cooperative movements. While in other cases, the government is trying to restore the movement’s institutions. Cooperative movements, as well as selected cooperatives, have benefited from donor programmes. Different types of donors have been prominent, including northern cooperative movement agencies, bilateral agencies, UN-agencies and some NGOs. Most programmes seek to enhance institutional strength, value chain monitoring, rural access to finance and training in governance.

  8. Publication

    Cooperating out of child labour. Harnessing the untapped potential of cooperatives and the cooperative movement to eliminate child labour

    08 July 2009

    This title has been produced as a call to action to the world cooperative movement to join hands in fighting child labour. Cooperatives and the cooperative movement have an important, but as yet unharnessed, role to play in the elimination of child labour worldwide.

  9. Publication

    Cooperating out of poverty: The renaissance of the African cooperative movement

    02 February 2009

    This book offers an objective analysis of the state of affairs of the cooperative sector in Africa since the liberalization of the economy in the early 1990s.

  10. Publication

    Working Paper No. 9 - Cooperatives: a path to economic and social empowerment in Ethiopia

    01 February 2009

    Traditional cooperatives associations existed in Ethiopian society centuries ago in the form of iqub and idir. Iqub is an association of people having common objectives of mobilizing resources, especially finance, and distributing it to members on rotating basis. Idir is an association of people that have the objective of providing social and economic insurance for the members in the events of death, accident, damages to property, among others. In the case of funeral, Idir serves as funeral insurance where community members elect their leaders, contribute resources either in kind or in cash and support the mourning member.