Essay on cooperatives movement in Tanzania
ASSIGNMENT 1
QUESTION:
Give an account of how cooperatives started in Tanzania but with a brief history of origins of present mode of cooperative in the world.
I. INTRODUCTION.
Various scholars and organizations including International Labour Organization (ILO) have produced various definitions of cooperatives. But both definitions converge on a more general legal definition adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA). ICA defines cooperative as autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise (1). This implies that in cooperative people come together with a common goal willingly without coercive force, join on their own will. It also means that cooperatives are created by pooling or mixing interests, properties or labors. Members “throw in their lot” with other members who do the same, with a view to realizing benefits impossible by acting on those impossibilities one after another. Such benefits may include economies of scale, increases in productivity, retention of profits by workers or the comradeship of coordinated group action.
Cooperatives are democratically controlled means that management of the cooperatives is on the basis of democracy whereby the top decision making organ is the general assembly ( the meeting of all members of the cooperative organization) of which the one is a member. The general assembly therefore, formulates the policies and guidelines for managing the organization. It also elects the board members of which the pillar of democracy of one member one vote dominates. Cooperatives are jointly owned meaning that all the members are owners of the enterprise and its goal is the mutual benefit of members themselves, with the result that if a co-operative is for-profit, profit is a means only, not an end, and such profit may be sacrificed, and if loss occur it is for all
QUESTION:
Give an account of how cooperatives started in Tanzania but with a brief history of origins of present mode of cooperative in the world.
I. INTRODUCTION.
Various scholars and organizations including International Labour Organization (ILO) have produced various definitions of cooperatives. But both definitions converge on a more general legal definition adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA). ICA defines cooperative as autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise (1). This implies that in cooperative people come together with a common goal willingly without coercive force, join on their own will. It also means that cooperatives are created by pooling or mixing interests, properties or labors. Members “throw in their lot” with other members who do the same, with a view to realizing benefits impossible by acting on those impossibilities one after another. Such benefits may include economies of scale, increases in productivity, retention of profits by workers or the comradeship of coordinated group action.
Cooperatives are democratically controlled means that management of the cooperatives is on the basis of democracy whereby the top decision making organ is the general assembly ( the meeting of all members of the cooperative organization) of which the one is a member. The general assembly therefore, formulates the policies and guidelines for managing the organization. It also elects the board members of which the pillar of democracy of one member one vote dominates. Cooperatives are jointly owned meaning that all the members are owners of the enterprise and its goal is the mutual benefit of members themselves, with the result that if a co-operative is for-profit, profit is a means only, not an end, and such profit may be sacrificed, and if loss occur it is for all
References: 1. Website of International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) — “Uniting, representing and serving cooperatives world-wide,” www.ica.coop Accessed on 17th Nov 013. 2. Jack Shaffer, Historical Dictionary of the Cooperative Movement, The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Md., & London 1999 3. Kimario, A.(1992) Marketing Cooperatives in Tanzania: Problems and Prospects,Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam University Press. 4. Maghimbi, S. (1990) Cooperatives in Agricultural Development, in O’Neill, Norman and Kemal Mustafa (Eds) Capitalism, Socialism and the Development Crisis in Tanzania, Aldershot, Avebury. 5. University Press of Africa (for Ministry of Information and Tourism, United Republic of Tanzania) (1968) Tanzania Today, Nairobi, Aldershot, Avebury. 6. Maghimbi, S. (1992) The Abolition of Peasant Cooperatives and the Crisis in the Rural Economy in Tanzania, in Forster, Peter G. and Sam Maghimbi (Eds) The Tanzanian Peasantry: Economy in Crisis, Aldershot, Avebury 7. URT, April 2005: The Cooperative Reform and Modernization Program CRMP: 2005 - 2015