The misguided future of co-operatives and the climate threat in Africa: learning the wrong lessons

Abstract

The vibrant post-independence co-operative model in Africa was characterized by local rootedness that guaranteed members of local ownership .Despite the fundamental basis of most co-operatives being cash crop production and marketing , the social movements further aligned to intervene in the delivery of critical basic social services particularly education. Following the growth of collective power of co-operatives, the desire of governments to regulate this growth was accompanied by global economic Challenges that required innovative support into sustainability factors. While the support was expected from government, the conventional approach to patronize and reforms the co-operative-based institutions was the dominant paradigm. In most cases the reforms were not based on any evidence-based measures. The 1990s and 2000s saw a steep drowning curve of co-operative survival, with stubbornly growing e.xternal challenges beyond the control of African governments, particularly globalization and trade liberalization policies promoted by the Bretton Woods Institutions. Revamping the cooperatives has unfortunately not been a priority of current governance structures. It is a fait accompli that the good lessons from early cooperatives in Africa have gone into the museum of success, and the trend is more worrying under the current architecture of trade for development guided by the World Trade Organization (WTO).Beyond the macro economics of cash crop markets and the WTO, rapidly changing Climate patterns have demonstrated huge impacts on cash crop production and marketing. The increasing threat of climate change to cash crops renders traditional co-operatives vulnerable to the level that revival becomes a mission impossible, besides imagining sustainability The paper examines the historical path of cooperatives in Sub Saharan Africa over the period 19605-2000, which was mix of success, decline and policy confusion .An analysis of the new millennium picture of cooperatives in Sub Saharan Africa leads to a conclusion that the plethora of challenges facing co-operatives including global trade policies and globalization rules have grown to the scale that allows climate change threat to exacerbate their economic vulnerability and diminishing hopes for revamp. The paper concludes that unless hard choices are made in government and regional policy frameworks to acknowledge the legitimate representative roles of co-operatives, the adaptive capacity of agricultural communities to cope with the impact of climate change will remain in jeopardy and therefore lead to a pseudoco- operative model with rhetorical local ownership. Interventions for climate smart policies and institutional practices though innovations are should not be an option but an exceptional priority