Addressing capacity gaps of cooperatives towards creating decent jobs and profitability for its members

News | 08 September 2022
The ILO ProAgro Ethiopia project ultimate outcome is “Promotion of Decent Work in Agribusiness. Agricultural cooperatives have been proven to be effective vehicles in creating decent jobs through enhancement of productivity and facilitation of market accessibility for members products. However, an assessment report, Cooperatives Capacity Assessment in Amhara and Sidama Regions conducted by the ProAgro Ethiopia project identified the capacity gaps of cooperative enterprises and similar self-help organizations. Capacity gaps hinder the profitability and efforts of cooperatives in providing effective services.

The ILO conducted a ten-day Training of Trainers (ToT) in response to the assessment from 29 August to 07 September 2022 for 24 experts working at federal and regional cooperative authorities in Ethiopia. The aim of the ToT is to fill key capacity gaps that cooperatives struggle with in terms of providing services to their members and being profitable in their businesses to ultimately create decent jobs for its members.

The ToT covered Think.Coop, Start.Coop, and My.Coop ILO training modules that helped to create a pool of skilled trainers at federal and regional levels in Amhara and Sidama regional states who will be deployed to rollout the trainings to cooperatives in the two regions in collaboration with the Ethiopian Federal Cooperative Commission (ECC) to address key capacity gaps.

The expected continuous improvement and innovation from the trainers participated in this ToT are:
  • Overall thematic knowledge of the different Think. Coop, Start. Coop and My. Coop modules and sessions
  • Facilitation skills and understanding of what adult learning is about
  • Ability to design and facilitate interactive and experiential learning-based training to members, management committee members, and management of cooperatives on development and the management of cooperatives
  • Respect diversity as a core value in the training process.
“All participants were enthusiastic to learn all the contents of the training. Their enthusiasm to learn was signified by their commitment in working in buzz groups, group tasks, exercises, presentations, and plenary discussion sessions”.
Albert Mruma
International Trainer
      

Participants acquired knowledge and skills related to cooperative concepts, identification of business idea and researching on its feasibility, business plan development, governance of cooperatives, cooperative service provision, institutional analysis, procurement, storage and stock management of farm inputs, and marketing of agricultural products.

 

“The training gave us the opportunity to assess and revise our work to support efforts of cooperatives in a more organized and structured way to enhance the profitability of their businesses.”
Aberash Tawye
Cooperative Management Expert, Cooperative Promotion Authority, Amhara Regional State
   
 
“The training covered pertinent topics and shared best practices from other countries that greatly improved the skills of cooperative experts to better support cooperatives.”
Tamiru Teffo
Senior Expert, Cooperative Agency Training and Education, Sidama Regional States
     

At the end of the ToT, cooperative experts developed action plans for each region together with experts from federal level to roll out the training to cooperatives in Amhara and Sidama regional states with the support from the ILO. The ILO ProAgro Ethiopia project is implemented in two regions of Ethiopia with financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (BMZ) Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation.