Formation and institutional development of saccos: experiences from MoCU-ICCE Dodoma regional office

Abstract

There is a widely held consensus among many actors, including the UN (1996), the ILO (1995, 2000, and 2014) and the ICA (1995, 2013), that the co-operative is the type of enterprise that is most suited to addressing all dimensions of reducing poverty and exclusion. Co-operatives provide institutional framework to facilitate their members’ access to financial capital, enabling smallholder farmers to access the inputs required to grow crops and keep livestock, provide processing, transport, marketing information and market their produce. Co operatives are mainly the institutions which are always deep rooted in the community – examples are the agricultural marketing, production and marketing pre-cooperatives, SACCOS (savings and credit co-operative society), VSLGs, livestock marketing and commercial family farmer’s organizations (CFFO). The Co-operative organization is formed of a structure which responds to the needs of members and thus its formation follows a process of institutional development linking three key prisms – people, purpose, structure and systems. Through this paper, the MoCU-ICCE Dodoma is interested to share its experiences in facilitating communities to form membership-based organizations with specific emphasis on SACCOS. This paper is organized by starting with discussing background and contents, with brief notes on the ICCE-Dodoma. Subsequently, it is followed with a short discussion on concept of the organized actions and lastly the sharing of the processes in the formation of the SACCOS and the concluding remarks