Swaziland

Country Profile

The Kingdom of Swaziland is a small land locked country in Southern Africa bordering South Africa and Mozambique.  Its population is 1.1 million and it ranks 151st out of 177 participating nations measured on the United Nations Human Development Index (2007 -08).

The most challenging component of Swaziland’s development is the impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic on the population. The country has the highest prevalence rate in the world (32.4%), the highest death rate and the lowest life expectancy (31 years). One third of Swazi children are orphaned or vulnerable. Swaziland has developed a national strategy to combat what can only be described as a social disaster; however the pandemic continues to ravage the population with a devastating impact on growth and development.

The Swazi economy is diverse with an estimated 13% of GDP from the agriculture, forestry and mining sectors, 37% of GDP from manufacturing, and government and other services making up 50%. The majority of the population, however, are employed in subsistence agriculture. This 75% of the workforce works on marginal Swazi Nation Land with weak tenure rights and low levels of productivity and investment; conversely the industrialised agricultural sector produces on high value land with strong tenure rights high investment and productivity.  Continuing low levels of economic growth and productivity, high levels of inequality and unemployment persist.

Cooperative situation

Cooperatives in the Kingdom Swaziland date back to around 1931 when the first Cooperative Proclamation was introduced. At this time only a few cooperatives was registered, mostly in the farming sector. It is in 1963 that the post of Registrar for Cooperatives as well as a Department for Cooperative Development was created. The Cooperative Societies Proclamation was introduced in 1964 and evolved to the Cooperative Societies Act of 2003, completed by Cooperative Societies Regulations in January 2006.

With an initial agricultural tradition, cooperatives are now in various sectors of the economy. These include farmers’, poultry, livestock breeders, fruit and vegetables, consumer, multi-purpose, and savings and credit cooperatives, the latter being the sector with the largest membership. Comparing to savings and credit cooperatives, other cooperatives are essentially rural based, comparatively small in size with a small membership all round.

The cooperative movement in Swaziland has formed three apex organizations for multi-purpose farmer’s cooperatives, for savings and credit cooperatives and for poultry cooperatives. There are 190 registered cooperatives with a membership of 43,528 members and about 78 % of them are women.

Challenge Fund Partners

The Challenge Fund facility of CoopAFRICA is concerned with three main areas of cooperative development: services, innovation and training. CoopAFRICA has initiated two calls for proposals under this facility. In the first call which closed in June 2008 a total of 145 proposals were submitted to CoopAFRICA. Eight proposals were selected for funding totalling USD 301,354. In the second call 141 project proposals were received in December 2008 from 6 countries, of which 22 projects have been selected. The projects for the second round are worth an estimated sum of USD 1, 330, 000. Applications submitted during the third call, held in May 2009, are currently being processed. Small grants of up to USD 20,000 are considered and selected throughout the year without a special call.

The following project from Swaziland has been selected for funding through the CoopAFRICA Challenge Fund:

SICALO SABOMAKE Association The project’s aim is to expand production and increase marketing of the local products produced by the women association to the local community, and hence create new employment opportunities for unemployed women.

Ongoing projects with partners/actors involved

The presence of CoopAFRICA and the project on Capacity Building for Women’s Cooperative Entrepreneurship in Swaziland has incited ILO constituents to demonstrate enthusiasm for the development of cooperatives as member-driven enterprise with the capacity to solve development constraints such as poverty, lack of empowerment, HIV/AIDS, among others.

• Capacity building for women’s cooperative entrepreneurship in Swaziland - (pdf 92.7 KB)

Focal Point