Unleashing the Potential of Cooperatives in South Africa

Cooperatives are powerful tools for economic and social empowerment, yet their potential in South Africa has yet to be fully realized. To address this, the Deputy Minister of Small Business Development, Dipuo Peters, held a Co-Operatives Policy Dialogue to examine the progress made in implementing the last 10-year Integrated Strategy for the Development and Promotion of Co-operatives and to strategize for the future.

Creating an Ecosystem for Cooperative Development

One of the key objectives of the National Small Enterprise Development Strategic Framework (NISED) is to create a coordinated ecosystem approach to support small enterprises. This includes tackling red-tape, addressing the R350 billion credit gap, providing market access, and promoting supplier development, localization, and exporter development. To supplement the government’s capacity and resources, it plans to partner with various ecosystem role-players.

The dialogue focused on the ecosystem required for cooperative development, strategic partnerships, legislation, and financing of cooperatives. The government aims to identify successful examples of cooperatives incubation and leverage the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to ensure technology transfer to cooperatives. One crucial aspect is the economic empowerment of women through cooperatives since women own only 20% of the South African economy.

Creating a New Co-operative Development Strategy

The dialogue aimed to create a new Co-operative Development Strategy based on its outcome and the review of the Integrated Strategy for the Development and Promotion of Co-operatives (ISDPC). The dialogue also considered the state of cooperative development in South Africa and the international perspective on cooperative development.

Working Together for Inclusive Growth and Development

Cooperatives have always been crucial for African development due to their compatibility with traditional African cultural values, capacity to create employment, and provision of social protection to rural inhabitants. Moving forward, the government and stakeholders must work together to create an enabling ecosystem for cooperative development. This includes revisiting legislation, addressing funding challenges, linking cooperatives to domestic and international markets, and coordinating the ecosystem with the support of cooperative representative structures.

Maintaining open and robust dialogue among all stakeholders, including the government, cooperative organizations, and international partners, is essential to ensure that the next 10-year strategy for cooperative development achieves its intended goals and brings about tangible, positive changes to the South African economy. By understanding the opportunities and challenges faced by cooperatives, South Africa can devise strategies to harness their potential for inclusive growth and development.