Sustainable Cooperatives for Economic Expansion in Africa

Workshop synopsis

After shaking off the chains of colonialism, African countries in their entirety adopted cooperatives as tools to implement “African socialism”. However, soon after the dawn of independence, cooperatives proved to be economically unsustainable in most of the African countries as they promoted a concept of welfarism which required heavy government financial outflows. Towards the mid-1980s, governments became increasingly disenchanted by the bland performance of the “cooperative” movements, which had become a burden to the state and the public. The failure of African socialism together with its cooperative regimes forced governments to adopt liberal based structural adjustment of their economies. This resulted in withdrawal of state support and state control over cooperatives in the 1990s. In light of this, the main challenge faced by today’s cooperatives scholars in Africa is to reinvent cooperatives as a relevant and sustainable vehicle for economic expansion.

The YSI Cooperatives WG workshop which will be running concurrently with the Cooperatives University of Kenya Annual Conference seek to assist young scholars who are grappling with complex cooperatives studies in Africa as they search for sustainable models for cooperatives development. The workshop will discuss, specifically, new research methodologies necessary in creating sustainable cooperatives models in Africa. As cooperators and cooperatives researchers, we have not sufficiently fronted the cause of cooperatives in Africa let alone push it to the high echelons of various processes, academic or otherwise. We believe in reinstating cooperatives as tools for enhancing economic advancement and development in the new quasi-liberal African economies. The Kenya workshop will explore research niches in cooperatives that require attention as it aims at remodeling cooperatives research and thinking along changing economic and political trends in Africa and beyond.