Assessment of the Role of Research in Molding Cooperative Policies

Abstract

A cooperative society is an autonomous association of persons who have united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and       democratically controlled organization, making equitable contributions to the capital required and accepting a fair share of the risks and benefits of the duty. Its role to economic development in developed, developing and under developed countries is very immense. Cooperation among people has existed since history has been record. However, the history of formal cooperatives in Ethiopia dates back to 1960, when the first directive of cooperatives was enacted. The review article is prepared with the main objective of assessing the role of research in molding the cooperatives policies. To do so, an appropriate methodology employed was descriptive research design. The source of data used is secondary data from the literature review and articles of different materials. The instruments used for data collection is review of compiled documents. The study shows that cooperatives are contributing to the socio-economic development of the country. Due to the enabling environment created by proclamation No. 147/ 1998, the numbers of primary cooperatives started to increase from 10,524 to 56,044 and members simultaneously increased from 4,529,259 to 9,165,267 having capital 8.8 billion birr. However, the degree of participation of the people and other stakeholders in policy making process is low. The finding identified major issues among which less room of participation of the concerned bodies in the policy formulation process, lack of clear demarcation of how to exercise power on government structures, lack of clear operational areas; lack of strong governance, lack of national federation, weak linkage between cooperatives and Universities; above all lack of fully implementing researchers’ recommendation. Thus, it seems to be imperative to fully implement the research findings and taking corrective measures to solve the challenges of the sector so as to gain an anticipated outcome.

Keywords: key words, Cooperatives; Policy; Contribution of research.

DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/9-5-02

Publication date:May 31^st 2019