Slide 9 of 13
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Slide 9 of 13 |
In the beginning of the 1980s, a special group was formed within the Ministry of Industry to support the growing development of worker cooperatives in Sweden. Earlier, consumer and agricultural cooperatives were totally dominant in Sweden. But now the Swedish Government had discovered that new forms of cooperation had a lot to offer society as a whole, and it responded with increased public support for cooperative development.
In 1986, after some massive local as well as national lobby work from the entire Swedish established cooperative movement, the Cooperative Council decided to take measures to build a national cooperative development system. In the cooperative development systems program, 1986, they state;
"Through this system of information education and development on central and local levels, it is our expectation to create as favourable conditions to new cooperative enterprises as we have for all other types of companies."
The system's funding was a mutual effort from the established cooperative movement and from the government. One task was to support the creation of local development centres (CDC's). The CDC's was supposed to launch local initiatives, where the local cooperative movement should provide its part of the expected funding. The primary aim for a CDC is to support local cooperatives establishing in all sectors. This means that the prime target is to create cooperatives and not to provide jobs, but of course new jobs are a natural consequence of cooperative development.
In 1990 an evaluation was carried out, and this showed that the local development centres had been successful in their work, and that their users appreciated their efforts. The evaluation showed that the new cooperatives and the cooperative development centres had had a positive influence, both on local economic development and on the development of society as a whole.
A later audit of the new cooperative enterprises, carried out by the Swedish National Audit Office, showed that the local CDC's had a total turnover of SEK 20 million during 1992. The same year 1300 jobs were created within new cooperatives at an annual cost of SEK 11000. This can be compared with calculations made by the Swedish board of Labour and Employment, which suggest that the generation of a new "traditional" job cost about SEK 74450.
The local cooperative development centre does, with its work, increase the possibilities for rural development; another effect is that the parents' cooperative childcare-centres enable women to find work outside their homes. Cooperative development also adds a healthy dose of pluralism to the Swedish industrial life. This increased pluralism, in its turn, gives increased opportunities for non-traditional entrepreneurs to find a suitable form for their activities. Last but not least it could be said that social cooperatives are an alternative to common privatisation of the Swedish public sector.
The CDC's, through developing enterprises with a non-profit and public interest aim for disadvantaged groups, not only creates new job opportunities, but also stimulates empowerment of the people and community through participation and control by members and workers. Through such an active participation process, the CDC's also creates a new entrepreneurial culture of the social entrepreneur.
A great number of new enterprises are created in the context of welfare municipal public sector. This development is due to the real needs within the local society. To develop a sustainable local economy partnership is extremely important. The local cooperative development centres have a focus on non-traditional entrepreneurs, by aiming at people with different kind of handicaps, they decrease the societal costs in this area, and at the same time give these people an increase in the quality of life.
All CDC's in Sweden are independent, secondary cooperatives working mainly with information, training and counselling in the cooperative and the social economy field. In 1985 we had 3 local cooperative development centres in Sweden, today there are 24, at least one CDC in every Swedish county.
Comments or questions? Contact the COPAC Coordinator.
Posted: 19 July 2000