Abstract:
The world today is in a major transformation process from state led social economic
development to heavy reliance on market. Indeed, this is more pronounced among the once
socialist oriented countries. Tanzania, which once claimed to be a socialist state, is not left out
of this major transformation. In an attempt to build socialism, Tanzania relied heavily on
cooperatives. As a result, cooperatives were promoted and supported heavily from the early
days of independence. Series of cooperative transformation measures were introduced at
different times. At first, cooperatives were vigorously promoted and replicated all overt the
country This was followed by a systematic infusion of the ujamaa ideology into cooperation.
However, by 1976, it was found that the existing form of cooperation could not co-exist with
the ujamaa village policy, and hence cooperatives were dissolved. The present cooperatives
were as a result of the government’s U-turn in her policies by allowing the reintroduction of
cooperatives in 1984 through the enactment of cooperatives legislation in 1982
