Youth Cooperatives Development: A Sustainable Way to Create Employment for Youth
Capacity building of key national institutions, youth organizations & youth cooperative enterprises on promotion of cooperatives development
20 November 2014
The International Labour Organization contributes to all of the six agreed UN Tanzania Outcomes that are expected to address the mismatch between growth and poverty reduction. In these outcomes, ILO plays a pivotal role in incorporating decent employment across various macroeconomic and sectoral interventions designed by the UN Agencies. Likewise, ILO is contributing to country’s achievement of the MDGs through Millennium Acceleration Framework (MAF) in which Tanzania has identified a number of strategic objectives. Through MAF, ILO implements activities under a project called ‘Enhancing employment opportunities for young men and women through entrepreneurship and skills development.
One of such UN outcomes in the United Nations Development Assistance Plan (UNDAP), is outcomes 2; which seeks to see Local Government Authorities (LGAs), agriculture support organizations and small-holder farmers increase agricultural productivity, access to markets and food security. This is in line with the National Development goals as detailed in National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (MKUKUTA II), specific goals that this UN outcomes contributes to, are MKUKUTA goals 2 and 3; (2) Reducing income poverty through promoting inclusive, sustainable and employment-enhancing growth and (3) Ensuring creation of productive and decent employment, especially for women and youth
ILO believes that these goals can only be achieved through promotion of sustainable enterprises; micro, small, medium to large and multinational enterprises, and social economy enterprises including co-operatives. An economy like Tanzania which is mainly agricultural and rural, cooperative enterprises contribute to the reduction of poverty and offer an effective and socially sound way of tackling current key employment-related challenges, including the decent work deficits faced by women and youth. The ILO interventions to promote cooperatives are focused at increasing the capacity of people to get out of poverty using the potentials of cooperatives. The underlying theory of change is that; through cooperatives, some important policy goals can be better achieved, such as creating jobs and generating income, preventing and reducing poverty, providing social protection and giving people a voice in society through social dialogue.
Towards this end, ILO‘s approach to cooperative development has focused on rebuilding the cooperative movement in Tanzania by changing perceptions on the contribution of cooperatives to social and economic development, by supporting the development of policies and laws for cooperative development as well as carrying out activities and providing assistance to strengthen cooperatives and other forms of self-help groups.
Justification
The youth unemployment which is becoming daunting in Tanzania and globally, yet Tanzania population is quite youthful with over 50% of its population comprising of youth. In response ILO implements activities to assist youth to create employment for them and for others. The ILO activities include supporting the establishment and strengthening of youth cooperative models. Too often young people are not aware of the co-operative model of enterprise; they do not learn about cooperatives in schools, as co-operatives often do not feature in school curricula. Young people also may not realize that the products and services they use are provided by co-operatives. Where they are known, the nature of cooperatives; embracing traditional production and management systems, do not attract youth.
It is out of this fact that ILO, utilizing resources availed by UNDAP and MAF projects and in collaboration with Moshi Cooperatives University (MoCU) is implementing an activity targeting to build the capacity of Key National Institutions and constituencies in the promotion and development of cooperatives among youth. Already 11 Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in four regions of Kilimanjaro, Tanga, Coast and Dar es Salaam have been trained and action plans for the promotion of youth cooperatives drawn and committed for implementation. This week 16 – 20th March Training is continuing in Dodoma in which 11 additional LGAs from Dodoma, Singida, Manyara and Arusha are participating. Apart from the LGAs 22 youth organizations and 22 youth cooperatives are participating. The ILO constituents and government ministries, departments and agencies in attendance were Tanzania Trade Union Congress of Tanzania (TUCTA), Association of Tanzania Employers (ATE) Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), Ministry of Information, Youth, Culture and Sports (MoIYCS), Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives (MoAFC), Tanzania Cooperatives Development Commission (TCDC), Tanzania Federation of Cooperatives (TFC) and MoCU regional offices.
Objectives & Expected Outputs
The objective of this activity is to build the capacities of the cooperative support offices and organizations for them to promote cooperatives enterprise development among youth and build a cadre of cooperative support service providers who will provide cooperative business development services at conveniently lower cost, reliably and sustainably. The specific objectives of the trainings include; familiarize participants with basic concepts and practices of cooperatives, to enable them apply appropriate processes in facilitating formation of needs based cooperatives, acquisition of appropriate strategies to promote cooperatives among youths and enable participants appreciate the importance of youth participation in cooperatives. The intervention will also enable experience sharing on the global and national best practices on youth cooperative development.
In the long run the output of the training is the implementable and agreeable action plans that will guide promotion, development and strengthening of sustainable youth cooperatives enterprises
One of such UN outcomes in the United Nations Development Assistance Plan (UNDAP), is outcomes 2; which seeks to see Local Government Authorities (LGAs), agriculture support organizations and small-holder farmers increase agricultural productivity, access to markets and food security. This is in line with the National Development goals as detailed in National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (MKUKUTA II), specific goals that this UN outcomes contributes to, are MKUKUTA goals 2 and 3; (2) Reducing income poverty through promoting inclusive, sustainable and employment-enhancing growth and (3) Ensuring creation of productive and decent employment, especially for women and youth
ILO believes that these goals can only be achieved through promotion of sustainable enterprises; micro, small, medium to large and multinational enterprises, and social economy enterprises including co-operatives. An economy like Tanzania which is mainly agricultural and rural, cooperative enterprises contribute to the reduction of poverty and offer an effective and socially sound way of tackling current key employment-related challenges, including the decent work deficits faced by women and youth. The ILO interventions to promote cooperatives are focused at increasing the capacity of people to get out of poverty using the potentials of cooperatives. The underlying theory of change is that; through cooperatives, some important policy goals can be better achieved, such as creating jobs and generating income, preventing and reducing poverty, providing social protection and giving people a voice in society through social dialogue.
Towards this end, ILO‘s approach to cooperative development has focused on rebuilding the cooperative movement in Tanzania by changing perceptions on the contribution of cooperatives to social and economic development, by supporting the development of policies and laws for cooperative development as well as carrying out activities and providing assistance to strengthen cooperatives and other forms of self-help groups.
Justification
The youth unemployment which is becoming daunting in Tanzania and globally, yet Tanzania population is quite youthful with over 50% of its population comprising of youth. In response ILO implements activities to assist youth to create employment for them and for others. The ILO activities include supporting the establishment and strengthening of youth cooperative models. Too often young people are not aware of the co-operative model of enterprise; they do not learn about cooperatives in schools, as co-operatives often do not feature in school curricula. Young people also may not realize that the products and services they use are provided by co-operatives. Where they are known, the nature of cooperatives; embracing traditional production and management systems, do not attract youth.
It is out of this fact that ILO, utilizing resources availed by UNDAP and MAF projects and in collaboration with Moshi Cooperatives University (MoCU) is implementing an activity targeting to build the capacity of Key National Institutions and constituencies in the promotion and development of cooperatives among youth. Already 11 Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in four regions of Kilimanjaro, Tanga, Coast and Dar es Salaam have been trained and action plans for the promotion of youth cooperatives drawn and committed for implementation. This week 16 – 20th March Training is continuing in Dodoma in which 11 additional LGAs from Dodoma, Singida, Manyara and Arusha are participating. Apart from the LGAs 22 youth organizations and 22 youth cooperatives are participating. The ILO constituents and government ministries, departments and agencies in attendance were Tanzania Trade Union Congress of Tanzania (TUCTA), Association of Tanzania Employers (ATE) Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), Ministry of Information, Youth, Culture and Sports (MoIYCS), Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives (MoAFC), Tanzania Cooperatives Development Commission (TCDC), Tanzania Federation of Cooperatives (TFC) and MoCU regional offices.
Objectives & Expected Outputs
The objective of this activity is to build the capacities of the cooperative support offices and organizations for them to promote cooperatives enterprise development among youth and build a cadre of cooperative support service providers who will provide cooperative business development services at conveniently lower cost, reliably and sustainably. The specific objectives of the trainings include; familiarize participants with basic concepts and practices of cooperatives, to enable them apply appropriate processes in facilitating formation of needs based cooperatives, acquisition of appropriate strategies to promote cooperatives among youths and enable participants appreciate the importance of youth participation in cooperatives. The intervention will also enable experience sharing on the global and national best practices on youth cooperative development.
In the long run the output of the training is the implementable and agreeable action plans that will guide promotion, development and strengthening of sustainable youth cooperatives enterprises