Identification of Internal and External Factors Limiting Co-operative Autonomy and Performance

Abstract

The identification of internal and external factors limiting co-operative autonomy and independence is the study that was conducted in Moshi Rural District. In the study, five societies namely Uru Kati Mawela, Uru North, Uru North Msuni, Uru North Njari and Manushi Sinde were surveyed. The general objective of the study was to identify internal and external factors that limit co-operative autonomy and independence and therefore contributing to their poor performance. The study revealed that 64 % of members do not attend meetings regularly, 42 % does not know their leaders, and 100% of the studied cooperative societies had neither a strategic, contingent nor a business plan. Of the studied societies 60 % of the board members were primary school leavers and 100 % of the secretary managers did not attend any training. It was also revealed that 76% of the societies depend on coffee as their main source of fund which is not reliable due to decline of production and price fluctuation. The study concluded that there are factors inherent to co-operative societies that limit their autonomy and independence. Among the internal factors were member's ignorance, poor leadership by the board members, weak management resulting from to lack of training by the management and failure of the organization to raise enough capital from within which limits their financial autonomy. The study recommended that there should be a solid program for educating members, the boards and the management, the societies should think of other sources of fund apart from coffee and at the same time, the co-operative societies should make sure that they hire the competent managers who can run the organization more effectively