Zambia exploring ways of making co-ops self-reliant

LUSAKA-The government of Zambia is exploring ways of ensuring that cooperatives in that country are self-reliant so that they stop depending on state coffers.

According to Lusaka Times, the government of Zambia will engage India to help turn around cooperatives in the country through capacity building.

Vice President Mutale Nalumango says that the cooperative movement in the country is helped to grow in order for it to play a significant role in Zambia’s economic transformation agenda.

According to her, there are vital lessons Zambia can learn from the progress India’s cooperative movement has made over the last 120 years in impacting the economy.

Nalumango was days ago speaking in India after touring the US$ 5 billion Anand Milk Union Limited [AMUL] dairy cooperative plant.

She said the Amul Cooperative society model is a clear-cut framework that can help Zambia’s cooperative movement arise from its slumber and effectively participate and contribute to the country’s economic development.

“Your organisation, the way you run things, we would like to tap into that, help us set up, we are not saying, we want cooperatives that will have the hand of government, we would like to follow this model,” said Nalumango.

Amul Managing Director, Rupinder Sodhi explained that micro-level participation of members is cardinal to the effective operation of a cooperative society.

Singh said that every member of Amul is treated equally regardless of their shareholding status.

“The farmers cooperative model is based on self-sufficient, business enterprise, …and it has to be operated from bottom to up, You need very dedicated selfless farmers’ leadership…,” said Sodhi.

He stressed that leadership and management styles from top to bottom are a recipe for cooperatives to fail.

The Amul Dairy cooperative was founded in 1946 to address and has over 18,000 farmers as members supplying the plant with milk used to make various dairy products.

https://thecooperator.news/zambia-30-dairy-cooperatives-receive-seed-fertiliser/

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