FAO´s Perspective

This was reconfirmed during the deliberations of the World Food Summit: five years later held in Rome from 10-13 June 2002. FAO's Anti-Hunger Prorgamme document prepared for the Summit, among its priorities for action in food, agriculture and rural development emphasizes that:

• Post-production operations account for more than 55 percent of the economic value of the agriculture sector in developing countries and up to 80 percent in developed countries. However, relatively little public sector and developmental support is targeted at this sector in developing countries. Action is urgently needed to develop food handling, processing, distribution and marketing enterprises by promoting the emergence of small-scale farmers' input supply, processing and marketing cooperatives and associations. It is also important to encourage entrepreneurship and to develop the requisite infrastructure and standards.

Yet the enabling environment within which rural cooperatives must operate today is markedly different from that which existed a decade ago. Structural adjustment programmes, a decline in donor financing of government budgets deficits and market liberalization has opened once-protected agricultural co-operative markets and led to a dramatic fall in government financial support to agricultural co-operatives. The consequence of these three factors has plunged agricultural co-operatives into an increasingly competitive business-environment, while at the same time creating a capital shortage crisis that many agricultural co-operatives are finding very difficult to handle. Therefore, if cooperatives are to demonstrate the "cooperative advantage" their business efficiency needs to be increased so that they can compete more effectively in global markets. These improvements need to include increased use of computer-based and Internet-based information technologies in managing the cooperative business. Membership needs to be promoted through improving the quality of cooperative business services offered to members and by giving them more a sense of ownership through their participation in the decision making process. Member investment in the cooperative business also needs to be encouraged and increased to finance growth. Cooperative laws and policies have to be changed to facilitate the process.

Converting these concepts into activities and outputs, FAO focuses its cooperative assistance programmes on three technical areas:

• design of national policies, strategies and legislation to enhance cooperatives' role in development, emphasizing the need for synergy and the economic efficiency gains to be derived from their involvement in decision-making and programme implementation;
• development and refinement of concepts and techniques for coalition-building and partnerships in support of rural development and food security;
• internal capacity-building to make cooperatives, along with other civil society organizations, equal and efficient partners in development.

• FAO provided technical and financial support for the organization of the NEDAC Workshop on Financial Viability of Agriculture Cooperatives, held in Comilla, Bangladesh, from 20-23 May 1998
• FAO sponsored the "FAO-NEDAC Training of Trainers Workshop on Agricultural Cooperative Development" held at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, College of Public Affairs, Laguna, Philippines, from 26 to 30 October 1998. (See separate box)
• NEDAC Genaral Assembly was held, with FAO support, in Manila, Philippines, 8-12 November 1999
• NEDAC Executive Committee Meeting was held at the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP), Bangkok, Thailand, 8-9 March, 2000
• The FAO Regional Offcie for Asia and Pacific (RAP) sponsored and co-organised the NEDAC "Round Table Meeting on Globalization and Liberalization - Challenges and Options for Agricultural Cooperatives" held in Bangkok, Thailand, January 2001.
• At the request of the NEDAC Executive Committee, in the year 2002 the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) prepared a Concept Paper on Strengthening and Building Capacities of Agro-based Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises and a regional technical cooperation project proposal for Capacity Building for an Action Programme on Cooperative Business Enterprise Expansion and Development (PROCEED).

Study on Developing Producer Groups and Rural Organisations in Central and Eastern Europe, FAO, Rome, 2002

Ten countries from former centrally planned economies have applied to join the European Union (EU). Over the past 50 years, all have had a very different history, and most recently each has experienced remarkable economic and political changes that have significantly impacted on both agricultural and rural communities. In theory, producer groups and rural organisations should have a central role to play in enabling their members, and the wider rural community, to take an active part in their own development. Yet when compared to current EU member countries very few have a major share in supplying inputs, providing farm or rural services or marketing production and even fewer influence national policy or decision-making making. In reality it seems that their role still cannot be entirely divorced from wider historical, political and socio-economic considerations and the generally negative experiences of "co-operation" gained throughout the region.

This paper reviews recent studies and proceedings completed by FAO and others, in relation to recent agricultural reform and rural development policies across the transition economies of CEE and in particular it explores the role of producer groups and rural organisations. The main objective of the project is to assist the development and strengthening of producers groups through assessing the present status, problems and external assistance needs of farmers' organizations in the EU accession countries of the sub-region. In particular, the paper aims to identify (1) technical assistance needs at sub-regional level and (2) further information needs for country specific FAO assistance programmes.

In the framework of its cooperative training of trainers programme aimed at helping developing countries and countries in transition transform their agricultural cooperatives into genuine self-help organizations, in 1998 FAO published in English an innovative manual geared to encouraging greater membership participation, improving management and familiarizing political and administrative decision-makers with new cooperative development approaches. The training manual is composed of seven modules, as follows:

• Understanding Cooperatives,
• Participation & Learning,
• Communication,
• Organizational Development,
• Cooperative Management,
• Tools for Planning and Organizing Cooperative Activities,
• Participatory Appraisal, Monitoring and Evaluation.

Throughout these modules, the manual deals with ways in which trainers and promoters of cooperatives can support cooperative members and management in the development of their cooperative organizations. Its objectives are:

• to broaden the trainers' view of their role, and ways in which they can react to circumstances, and to increase their confidence in their own capabilities. In short, to increase their competence.
• to help the trainer become an effective facilitator and moderator. That is to say, someone who can offer new methods for dealing with problems and tasks, assist in solving conflicts, draw attention to alternatives and assist in the more effective operation of the cooperative.
• to equip the trainer with tools to act as a resource person, providing information to the cooperative organization, its members, leaders and managers.
• to familiarize the trainer with participatory techniques which involve all parties concerned with the future of cooperative organizations.
• to support the trainer in the various tasks of raising awareness among cooperative promoters, members, decision-makers, leaders and managers of their problems/constraints as well as in their potential/capabilities, without taking the initiative away from them.

One of the findings of the FAO-ICA sub-regional workshop on Cooperative Capital Formation and Management Training in Moshi, Tanzania, 1999 was the realization that a necessary pre-condition for strengthening agricultural cooperative capital formation in Kenya was the introduction of some kind of computerised system of agricultural cooperative business accounting.

To find out more about the problems involved in computerizing agricultural coops in Kenya, FAO conducted a preliminary fact-finding study in late 2001 to identify some of the key issues and constraints that would have to be addressed. At the same time, FAO received a request from the Department of Cooperatives in Kenya requesting technical assistance in this area. Currently FAO is working, in consultation with the Department of Cooperatives in Kenya, in the formulation of a pilot project aimed at developing a marketable prototype computerised business information system for agricultural marketing agricultural cooperatives in the country. A draft project proposal has now been prepared and is being revised for funding under FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme.

As a follow-up to country case studies on experiences in five Latin American and seven sub-Saharan African countries in 2000-2001, FAO in collaboration with the ICA Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa organized a 3-day regional workshop in Nairobi in March 2002 to review the findings of these studies and provide a policy recommendations on how to strengthen partnership-building between farmer organizations government units, CSOs and the private sector at local level. Researchers from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, USA and Zambia participated. Considerable attention was focused on the extremely difficult transition period that agricultural cooperatives are experiencing in the sub-region as they learn to compete and mobilize investment capital under more liberalised market conditions. Those interested in receiving a copy of the workshop position paper are requested to send an e-mail to John.Rouse@fao.org.

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Posted: 5 July 2002