The My.Coop – Managing your agricultural cooperative training package and programme was launched in Turin in January 2012, and since then at least 148 organizations in over 50 countries have used the training package to improve management practices in agricultural cooperatives. It has been adapted to over two dozen countries, often accompanied with translation. My.Coop is currently available in over 20 languages, such as Indonesian Bahasa, Mongolian, Vietnamese and Arabic, and only in the Andean countries it has five versions with specifically adapted case studies – one focusing at provincial level. The users find My.Coop to be a consistent tool for cooperative development, suitable for adaptations across the world, and the participatory methods it uses are deemed beneficial. While My.Coop introduces most of the relevant topics for agricultural cooperative management, there is more that could be done with deepening the contents.

These and other findings were discussed with Agriterra to finalise the stocktaking report on the use and impact of My.Coop training package. This is the first time since its launch that such a study was conducted to analyse what has been done with My.Coop to date. These findings will be used in developing future strategies for the package. All the participants to the My.Coop online Training of Trainers course over the years were invited to a take part in a survey, and this information is being complemented by a number of interviews with users, developers and beneficiaries of My.Coop training package.

While the report is being finalised, the organizations agreed to accelerate joint efforts to promote the use and roll out of My.Coop across the globe. Once the results of the study are available, they will be discussed with other My.Coop partners such as the FAO for their future application. Plans for pilot initiatives to scale up the joint efforts are already being developed, and as the cooperative model time and again is proving its resilience and benefits to smallholder farmers across the globe, My.Coop is a tool responding to many of those common management challenges they are facing.