‘Hail ye the cooperative’

Every so often one cooperative or the other gets mention in the media. This is often deserved, as the cooperative ranks high in ensuring sustainable development in the countryside.On occasion, a headline will stick out for its aptness, or for the attention it draws, such as this one in The New Times recently: “Gasibo co-op raises Rwf11m for Agaciro fund”.For a rural co-op to raise such an amount suggests that it must not be doing too badly for its members. But the significance is also that this was a farmers’ cooperative, symbolically giving back to society through the Agaciro Development Fund to mark this year’s Umuganura. Rwandans have traditionally celebrated Umuganura to usher in the harvest season.As has been argued (see commentary, “The statistical significance of the cooperative worth appreciating”, The New Times, December 7, 2011), it is a general observation that cooperatives have proved to be the most effective way of bringing economic development in rural areas. The rationale is that grassroots cooperatives are better placed to find and provide solutions more effectively than well intentioned people from outside, including donors.The idea behind the Agaciro is just as similar echoing that of the local cooperative, though at the national level, and seeking to involve all Rwandan within and without the country.Another recent headline reads: “Ex-combatants co-op looks to create 500 jobs”.For those newcomers to Kigali who may not be aware, supervision of parking in the streets is not merely a function of the City Council, but has been ceded as an economic activity to the “ex-combatants co-op”. This is the Kigali Veteran Cooperative Society (KVCS) – the fellows in blue shirts who dish out the parking tickets. It, therefore, may not be stressing on the issue too much to note that there is also an aspect of peace building in the idea of the cooperative locally. As has also been observed in the above mentioned commentary, peace building cannot merely be an outcome of, but also collective economic enterprise. There is broad international recognition and local appreciation that one of the major prerequisites for peace building is successful socio-economic development. People drawn into networks of cooperation and exchange become tied together by their practical economic interests.Under the influence of the various interests and engagements told in the thousands of the cooperatives in Rwanda, the people begin to see issues of conflict between them in a new light. They forget what divides them and gradually learn to see each other as individual members of a family and recognize their own personal interest in upholding a common set of basic rights for all.The cooperatives, therefore, form a set of foundational blocks towards national development, with peace and prosperity for all being the dividend.Rwanda is locally driving forward an established tradition of the cooperative movement in the region, borne of the concept of crowd funding and the now quaint notion of “African socialism” to pool resources both for individual and collective development.The Agaciro and the above mentioned cooperatives, the farmers’ and the ex-combatants’, offer only a small window to the prospects of a nation keen to harness its potential from the grassroots to the national. It can only be applauded. Twitter: @gituram