Development Assistances in International Cooperative Organizations Literatures
SUGINO, Minoru
1. In the beginning
Cooperative societies had originally been organized by wage laborers or peasants in advanced European countries; however, the fact that the congress of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) in 1895, the first international conference of cooperatives, had India as one of the participating countries (Rhodes & Mavrogiannis 1995, p.1), seems to be showing that the movement has paid attention to developing countries from the beginning.
ICA, the international organization of cooperative societies established in 1890s, is occasionally emphasizing for itself that it, as the only organization universally representing ‘the cooperative sector’, has promoted assistances for developing countries through cooperatives; nevertheless, we can seldom see such studies as are reviewing development assistance activities by ICA in general in the world. The International Labor Organization (ILO) founded in 1919 too has a section regarding cooperatives and has kept assistances towards cooperatives in developing countries in particular; however, it has only one publication in 1960s reviewing such activities and no reviews at all including more recent activities. And also, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is organizing the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) with ICA and ILO to assist cooperatives in developing countries; but such activities also have rarely been reflected..
Considering that any cooperatives do somewhat economic activities, I decided that ‘development assistances’ in this article would include any forms of assistance for societies in developing countries. And I, seeing whatever literatures I could see and excluding prejudices as possible, tried to read the thoughts and acts of the parties concerning the international organizations ‘as it is’.
2. Development assistance activities before and in 1980s
Though ICA gave its first congress in the late 19th Century, the mentions about developing countries, which seems to have been mostly colonies then, have almost been nil throughout the successive congresses before the war; and surprisingly, even after the Second World War ended in 1945, the mentions about the countries have rarely been seen in the 3 congresses of 1946, 1948 and 1951. And in the literature of ILO in 1960s reviewing its ‘cooperative’ activities, the statement can be seen that it stepped towards ‘new direction’ to pay attention to cooperatives in Asia or Africa since 1946 (“The Cooperative” 1969, p.30).
Such a composition somewhat changed, in ICA, since the Paris congress in 1954, and the term ‘technical assistances’ have come to be mentioned frequently since then. In the report on “cooperative development in less-developed countries” presented at the Paris congress, it is stated that 33 cooperative institute principals or officers in charge of cooperatives from 6 countries gathered under the leadership of ILO (Watkins 1954, p.183), or that 14 experts came to be employed in 11 countries under the ‘special technical assistance program’ of the United Nations (Watkins 1954: 183). As, also in the report of 1972, it is mentioned that ‘technical assistances’ consists of 4 kinds, or namely, invitations of personnel from developing countries, dispatches of lecturers from advanced countries, dispatches of experts there-from and grants of materials (Janczyk Saxena 1972, p.269), such methods of assistances seem to have been fixed since then. It has early been mentioned that the assistance system of ICA was meager in reality, as, for example, the amount of the assistance for employing 14 experts mentioned above, which was less than 1 per cent of the total budget amount of the ‘technical assistance program’ for 1954, correspond to the twice of the annual budget of ICA (Watkins 1954, p.83). On the other hand, ILO, which started assisting establishing cooperative legislations in various countries soon after the war (“The Cooperative” 1969, p.49), helped also founding cooperative banks in many nations (“The Cooperative” 1969, p.76) and concluded, in the 1956 Havana congress, that every nation should establish its national union of cooperative federations (“The Cooperative” 1969, p.36), is said to have made large-scale assistances at the roots of the institutions.
As to the ICA congresses, the Nigerian representative’s statement that the cooperative movement was ‘the road to the truth of life’ and could be recognized as the method to realize development in a democratic way (Henry et al 1960, p.182), or the report of the then ‘vice-director in charge of development’ that cooperatives were ‘the school of democracy’ and, particularly in developing countries, were the only organizations in which individuals could study democracy (Thordarson 1988, p.112), must be regarded as views idealizing cooperatives excessively. Concerning more concrete methods of the cooperative education, while there was an idealistic opinion that college for cooperatives should be founded in every country (Keler 1957, p.334), a more realistic proposal too was made that ICA should help making textbooks to explain the cooperative movement in each country (Patel 1957, p.165). It was also indicated that ICA and others were planning to make books to introduce cooperatives in Europe (Henry 1957, p.153).
As early as in 1957, the secretary general of the All India Cooperative Union had once stated that, in some countries, the cooperative movement was less developed because there were no non-bureaucratic national cooperative federations (Patel 1957, p.163). For instance in the ICA congress report in 1988, it was argued that cooperatives were controlled by governments in developing countries, and that many governments had powerful cooperative departments, whose roles should originally be played by the cooperative federations (Thordarson 1988, p.113, 115). In the articles published in the theoretical journal of ILO, it was reported, for example, that, in Tanzania, the legislation was revised to make the power of the cooperative federation stronger than that of the government (Munkner 1977, p.51-53). Regarding assistance from developed countries, it is stated, for instance, by the Chilean representative that sufficient aid from cooperatives of advanced countries would make interventions of the governments unnecessary and would sweep away the absence of autonomy (“Report” 1966, p.245). As mentioned below, examples of ‘non-government-made’ cooperatives have occasionally been mentioned; for instance in the ICA report of 1988, mentioned were Indian dairy or sugar cooperatives, Kenyan coffee procurement cooperatives or finance cooperatives in Latin American countries (Thordarson 1988, p.10).
The descriptions regarding ‘theological disputes’ started by the representatives of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia or Poland is seen in the ILO literature of 1960s (“Activities” 1965, p.14-19); and in the ICA congresses too, as early as in 1960, the Czechoslovak representative stated, probably bearing developing countries in mind, that local bourgeoisies with political powers tend to resist cooperatives (Henry et al 1960, p.190). It would be of the same idea that another representative of Czechoslovakia stated that cooperatives of capitalist countries with financial powers, joining hands with governments or private firms, occasionally tried to have influence on developing countries (“Report” 1963, p.61). The report of the Soviet representative in 1984 stated that cooperatives were contributing to breaking monopolies by landowners or feudal lords (Trunov 1984, p.209); but on the other hand, the report also stated that the Soviet Union was giving aids following the principle of non-intervention in domestic politics (Trunov 1984, p.180). This report mentioned some successful examples of cooperatives; and it is characteristic that, stating that notable success could be seen particularly in Africa, examples of such socialist countries as Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique or Afghanistan were mentioned (Trunov 1984, p.182-184).
On the other hand, in as early as the late 1980s, the World Bank, as the symbol of ‘liberalism’, had already had considerable presence also in the world of cooperatives. The 1988 report told that even the World Bank, which had no cooperative assistance programs yet, had provided the half of its agricultural loans through cooperatives (Thordarson 1988, p.111). Another remarkable point in the 1988 report is the 3-type theory to classify cooperatives into ‘government-made’ ones, ‘grass-root’ ones organized by poor people themselves and, like Indian sugar, Senegalese cotton or Kenyan coffee cooperatives, large-scale ones organized by powerful producers (Thordarson 1988, p.109). ICA established the Southeast Asia (presently Asia-Pacific) regional office in New Delhi 1960, and the Africa regional offices in Moshi and Abidjan, in 1968 and 1981 respectively (Thordarson 1988, p.109). The 1988 report also stated that Lesotho and Tanzania had received the aid delegation of ICA, ILO and others for their preparation of national cooperative development plans (Thordarson 1988, p.119).
3. Development assistance activities in and after 1990s
According to Rhodes and Mavrogiannis (1995), after 1988, mentions about developing countries in ICA congress reports had become rarely seen again. This seems because the activities of the regional offices became vigorous instead of the congresses.
3.1. Activities of ICA headquarters in and after 1990s
The typical style of the literatures on foreign assistance is seen, for example, in a report entitled “ICA and Development” (1993), which told, together with the classifications like ‘financial’ or ‘educational’ assistances, that while the Asia-Pacific regional office was supported by Japanese, Swedish, Australian, Canadian and Dutch cooperatives, so was the West Africa office by Canadian, German and French ones and the Central America and Caribbean (presently Americas) office by Norwegian, Swedish, Canadian and Australian ones. A document on the establishment of cooperative education or research institutions in developing countries has its character in the point that, as the nationalities of the cooperatives on the supporting side, not only Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and Soviet Union, but also Israel, India, Malaysia or others are mentioned (Rana, 1996). Very individual support programs too are occasionally mentioned like, for instance, that a workshop for cooperative librarians was given in India (“Reports”, 1993). Seeing the statement that a workshop for several dozens of leaders was held in Benin (Kibora, 1996), it is understood that the problem of smallness of respective programs had never been solved even in 1990s.
As seen in the previous chapter, abstract or idealistic matters like ‘cooperative values’ often appeared in the discussions in ICA; and such a tendency has little changed in and after 1990s. For example, in an article on environmental problems, the reflection upon collaborations for past several decades with ‘government-made’ cooperatives was stated (“Environment”, 1992); or it seems too abstract that another article stated that category-wise cooperatives generating incomes were developing in the places where ‘government-made’ national unions had failed (Imbsen, 1995). The emphasis of the importance of idealistic ‘cooperative educations’, though less than in 1980s or before that, is also seen in the documents in 90s. For instance, a document concerning Asia argued that the causes of insufficient members’ participations were, in addition to excessively strong powers of governments, insufficient educations towards the members (“Co-ops”, 1995). Really reported educational assistance programs are, like providing literatures in the local languages to educational institutions in developing countries (Bonow, 1995), sober but idealistic ones. Regarding environment, an article is striking that the All China Marketing and Supply Cooperative Union, in collaboration with ICA, supported the recycle programs in Thailand and Philippines (“Environment”, 1992). Though the West Africa regional office’s literacy education programs in Benin or others are also striking, their beneficiaries were said to be several hundred per a program (Kibora, 1996).
3.2. Raising ICA regional offices
Seeing the contents of the homepage of the Asia-Pacific regional office in detail in the first place, it attracts attention that that the most voluminous contents are research articles on cooperatives. One article seeming representing idealistic studies states, for example, that national unions should become the models of cooperatives to diffuse ethical values or that the directors should give freedom to the experts and should do what is best for the members (Prakash, 2004). As seen above, before and in 1990s, there were many criticisms of ‘government-made’ cooperatives; but in the Asia-Pacific regional office homepage, the characteristic is rather criticisms of the ‘politicization’ of cooperatives, seen in the statements that ‘semi-governmental’ cooperatives failed due to the ‘politicization’ of the leaders (Rajendran, 2004, p.2), or that the roles of the experts are limited in cooperatives controlled by political leaders (Verma, 2004, p.3). It also should be mentioned that one article mentioned the ‘successful’ cooperatives having formed the ‘complexes’ of relating firms or cooperatives, like sugar cooperatives in India (Sudha, 2004). Articles in journals published by the Asia-Pacific office too can be read in the homepage; and the fact that the editors appealed to the member cooperatives that they should invest funds to make special editions about themselves (Coop Dialogue 2003, p.2) seems to have the meaning of the self-publication of developed cooperatives in Asia.
In the homepage of the Africa regional office, it was once reported, for example, that the Tanzanian Cashew-nuts Marketing Board has repeated inner conflicts (A Reports 2000, p.31) or that, in the cooperative cotton marketing in the country, excessive changes in policies and systems were repeated in from 1960s to 90s (A Report website, p.8). However, though the unsuccessful examples were reported, the analysis of the causes of failures, like, for instance in one case study in 2000s, it is indicated that communications between ordinary members and directors or staff members are little because there are no cooperative education regarding the rights of the members (Goff, 2006), are little analyzed. And, it is never a trifling thing but rather symbolizing the poorness of meeting management common in Africa that, in the international workshop on rural cooperative finance held in Tanzania, one participant said, “Food was not good. We want real coffee.” (Workshop 2000, p.29). On the other hand, COPAC is giving technical assistances as a purpose of activities ranking with advocacies and information exchanges, and stating that for the ‘Coop Africa’ program specialized in Africa, ILO donated 9.63 million dollars (“About COPAC”, 2011); but the area of the work is only 9 countries (“Cooperative Facility” 2011) and both the financial and geographical scales cannot be regarded as large. Or seeing literatures presented in the ‘Coop Africa’ homepage, the ambitious Project Design Manual (2010), for example, has no contents other than general theories with the example of an imaginary cooperative. The research reports also have no contents other than successful or unsuccessful examples of cooperatives; the report on Rwanda, for instance, gives “common names with other cooperatives”, “by-laws based upon old legislations”, “some members not agreeing to by-laws” or other examples seeming particularly serious in Africa as the causes of the delay in the registration of cooperatives (Mukarugwiza 2009, p.29), but it has little shown the analysis of the reason why such things become the problems or the imaginable countermeasures against these.