Co-operatives urged to increase lending

Co-operatives need to facilitate their clients to easily access loans, a continental ministerial conference has recommended. Addressing journalists on Friday at the closure of the tenth International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) Ministerial Conference in Kigali, African ministers in charge of co-operatives said there was need to focus on ways to improve co-operatives. According to Sithembiso G.G. Nyoni, the Zimbabwean Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development, commercial banks are not necessarily founded to serve the interests of ordinary people but rather to make profits. “Having access to banking system is difficult because some banks are not there to serve small people. They are also there to make money, most of the countries that are supporting co-operatives have changed to encourage savings and credits cooperatives,” Nyoni said.“It is up to stakeholders to create the banks and contribute in making the rules and regulations on how the members would benefit and I think that is the way to go,” she said. Rwanda’s Trade and Industry Minister Francois Kanimba, who was elected to chair the ministerial cooperative conference for the next three years, said African countries should work towards the establishment of a comprehensive and integrated cooperative financial system at the country and regional levels.Kanimba urged policy makers to devise laws and regulations that are beneficial to cooperatives as well as training professional managers to efficiently run the cooperative movement. “This includes SACCOs (savings and credit cooperatives), cooperative banks and cooperative insurance, among others. This imposes the need to develop professional managers who can exercise positions of genuine leadership, based, not on superior knowledge alone, but on superior knowledge of the needs of those being led. Our governments should develop policies to facilitate these processes,” he said.The Assistant Minister from the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Botswana, Keletso Rakhudu, said co-operatives need more support in terms of cash as well as advice on operations.“We have to ensure that we sustain and intensify the measures targeting small co-operatives; we must understand their need for access to finance,” said Rakhudu.He also stressed that while resources are limited, there is a need to increase collaboration between co-operatives and communities. He added that cooperative leaders also need to receive training and instructions on how to perform well and improve their co-operatives.“We have to train cooperative leaders so that they keep in mind the cooperatives’ interests rather than their personal benefits,” Rakhudu noted.He stated that cooperative leaders should recognise that resources should be well protected for the interest of each member.“Those are resources from every coop member’s efforts; they shouldn’t benefit individuals as such. Instead, they are there to help bring every members under one roof. That’s how extreme poverty will be eradicated,” he saidMali’s minister of Agriculture, Yaranga Coolibaly, stressed the need to promote the cooperative movement with all members and let members taste the success.Among the resolutions reached was the need to build a strong, sustainable, member driven, participatory cooperative movement in Africa from 2013-2015. This would help maximise the benefits of the cooperative enterprise model that is capable of addressing various global challenges relating to poverty, food security, and financial and economic crises, they said.The ministers also discussed the establishment of a strong monitoring performance framework.

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Co-operatives urged to increase lending