Slide 4 of 10

Democratization

• Impact of Structural Adjustment
• Liberalization of economies
• Democratization of society
• Growth of civil society including cooperatives
• Civil society voices concern over high levels of unemployment massive poverty in the developing countries

The democratization process

The World Bank and IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes, which our countries had to embrace, dictate that not only countries must liberalize their economies but that they must also democratize their societies. This process has made it possible for civil society organizations, including genuine cooperatives, which had been stifled by governments, to come up. This partly explains why the NGO sector is the fastest growing in these countries. The NGOs have learnt to network so effectively that they can hold up requests for funds by governments from either international financiers or donors unless their views have been taken into consideration. This newly found freedom to organize and operate autonomously augurs well for cooperatives.

Today, the major concerns of civil society are the high levels of unemployment and massive poverty in the developing countries. The economic models that have been tried do not seem to be providing the expected solutions.

Comments or questions? Contact the COPAC Coordinator.
Posted: 17 July 2000