What makes co-operatives work?

What makes co-operatives work?

In 2019, the Fairtrade Foundation (FTF) was awarded a
grant by Open Society Foundations (OSF) to carry out
research to understand the mechanisms that enable or
prevent co-operatives from creating value for their members
and their communities.
The resulting research examined existing co-operative
governance models and their enabling environment in the
cocoa sector in Ghana. The research aimed to understand
opportunities for improving producer-led cocoa co-operatives’
ability to drive empowerment, progress in achieving living
incomes and enhanced resilience for their membership
base. The following overarching research question guided
the analysis:
How can cocoa co-operatives in Ghana create value
for their members?
The term ‘value’ can be economic (eg. increased income)
but also social or political (ie. increased empowerment and
resilience), or any other outcome related to co-operative
action that farmers value.
The above question was broken down into the following
sub-questions:
1. How is value creation influenced by internal co-operative
characteristics? (ie. membership characteristics,
leadership, operating procedures, and governance
structures)
2. How is value creation influenced by factors external to
co-operatives? (ie. social cohesion, value chain structure,
institutional and socio-economic environment)
3. How can collective action and co-operative value creation
be supported (and not supressed) by external actors?
This research resulted in the design of a theory of change and
related analytical framework which assists in evaluating the
internal and external factors that impact how producer-led
co-operatives create value.
The report concludes with a road map with recommendations
guiding the future development of initial interventions that
can be tested in targeted pilot programmes and inform the
design of future projects with commercial partners and other
external actors.
The report provides a description of the research methods
(including its challenges and limitations); the conceptual
framework; an overview of the historical and current context
in which cocoa co-operatives in Ghana operate; key lessons
from the experiences of two case studies; and finally
recommendations for enhancing the capacity of cocoa
co-operatives to create value for their members and
communities going forward

Area of focus: Cocoa

Author(s): Dafni Skalidou

Organisation/institution: Fairtrade Foundation