How women fare in East African cooperatives | 1 The Cooperative Facility for Africa (CoopAfrica) is a regional technical cooperation programme of the ILO contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the promotion of decent work in Africa by promoting self-help initiatives, mutual assistance in communities and cross border exchanges through the cooperative approach. CoopAfrica cooperatives, other social economy organizations and their higher level structures in order to strengthen contributes their capacity to improving to access the markets, governance, create efficiency jobs, generate and performance income, reduce of primarypoverty, provide social protection and give their members a voice and representation in society. CoopAfrica‘s approach consists of assisting stakeholders to establish a legal and policy environment conducive to the development of cooperatives; providing support services Centres of competence”; promoting effective co-ordinating structures (eg. unions and federations) and establishing and maintaining challenge fund mechanisms, throughfor ‘services’, identified ‘innovation’, “ and ‘training’. These funds are accessible through a competitive demand-driven mechanism and a transparent selection of the best proposals. CoopAfrica Centres of competence” provide different types of services: projects; developmentand its network or adaptation of “ of didactical and methodological material; networking; policyadvocacy; and and legal promotion advice; studies of innovative and publications; cooperative trainingventures and among education; others. support to field CoopAfrica the Cooperative Programme (EMP/COOP) of the Job Creation and Enterprise Development Department is located of the in ILO. the ILOThe Office programme for East Africaworks inin Dar partnership es Salaam, withTanzania, the andInternational is part of Cooperative Alliance (ICA), the UK Cooperative College, the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa), the International Organization of Employers (IOE) and the African Union CoopAfrica is a multi-donors programme primarily supported by the UK Secretariat. Department for International Development (DfID). It also receives support from the Swedish InternationalCooperative and Development Raiffeisen ConfederationCooperation Agency (DGRV). (SIDA), the Government of Finland, the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND) and the German ILO Office for International Labour Office Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda Cooperative Programme (EMP/COOP) CoopAfrica 4, route des Morillons 1211 Geneva 22 P.O. Box 9212 Kazi House, Maktaba Street Tel: + 41.22 .799.7445 United Republic of Tanzania Switzerland Tel:Dar +255.22.2196700es Salaam E-mail: [email protected] Fax:www.ilo.org/coop +41.22.799.8572 E-mail: [email protected] www.ilo.org/coopafricaFax: +255.22.2122597 How women fare in East African cooperatives: the case of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda Eva Majurin ) AFRICA Cooperative Facility for Africa (Coop ILO Country Office for Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda Copyright © International Labour Organization 2012 First published 2012 Copyright Convention. Nevertheless, short excerpts from them may be reproduced without Publications of the International Labour Office enjoy copyright under Protocol 2 of the Universal authorization, on condition that the source is [email protected] For rights of reproduction or translation, welcomesapplication such should applications. be made to ILO Publications (Rights and Permissions), International Labour Office, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland, or by email: . The International Labour Office Libraries, institutions and other users registered with reproduction rights organizations may make copies in accordance with the licences issued to them for this purpose. Visit www.ifrro.org to find the reproduction rights organization in your country. ILO Cataloguing in Publication Data Majurin, Eva How women fare in East African cooperatives: the case of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda / Eva Majurin ; International Labour Office. – Dar es Salaam: ILO, 2012 1v. ISBN: 978-92-2-126148-3 (print); 978-92-2-126149-0 (web pdf) Internationalcooperative / Labouragricultural Office cooperative/ credit cooperative / women’s empowerment/ gender and development / East Africa / Kenya / Tanzania / Uganda 03.05 The designations employed in ILO publications, which are in conformity with United Nations practice, and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers. part of the International Labour Office concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests solely with their authors, and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Office of the opinions expressed in them. processReference is notto names a sign of of firms disapproval. and commercial products and processes does not imply their endorsement by the International Labour Office, and any failure to mention a particular firm, commercial product or ILO publications and electronic products can be obtained through major booksellers or ILO local offices orin manyby email: countries, [email protected] or direct from ILO Publications, International Labour Office, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland. Catalogues or lists of new publications are available free of charge from the above address, Visit our web site: www.ilo.org/publns Printed in Tanzania Cover page photos: © ILO/M.Crozet (Photo 1), ILO/Coop (Photo 4) AFRICA AFRICA AFRICA & KUSCCO Ltd (Photo 2), ILO/Coop Inside& Kirumya photos: BMCS © LtdILO/Coop (Photo 3), ILO/Coop (Photo 1), ILO/Coop & MACE Ltd. (Photo 2), ILO/Coop & AFRICA (Photo 4), ILO/CoopAFRICA AFRICA Coop (Photo 6), ILO/Coop AFRICA (Photo 7) AFRICA MACEAFRICA Ltd. (Photo 3), ILO/CoopAFRICA & Wowoya SACCO Ltd. (Photo 5), ILO/ Table of contents Preface i Acknowledgements iii List of acronyms iv Executive summary v Introduction 1 1 Overview of women’s participation in cooperatives in East Africa 5 1.1 Policy and legal framework 6 1.2 Overall membership patterns 6 10 1.4 Women’s employment in cooperatives 11 1.3 Women in cooperative governance and leadership 1.5 The status of women-only cooperatives 1.6 Cooperative education 14 13 2 Factors limiting women’s participation in cooperatives 17 2.1 Membership-related constraints 19 2.2 Hindrances to women’s equal leadership 20 20 21 2.3 Factors affecting women’s employment 2.4 Obstacles specific to women’s cooperatives 3 The benefits of cooperative membership: the “cooperative advantage” 24 23 29 3.1 Economic and social impacts 29 3.2 Specific benefits of the cooperative model 29 3.3 Benefits specific to women 3.4 Empowerment limitations 4 Overcoming obstacles to women’s participation in cooperatives: emerging good practices 33 4.1 Cooperative-level measures 34 4.2 Support agency action 36 4.3 Policy and legislation-level efforts 37 5 Conclusions and recommendations 5.1 Conclusions 39 40 5.2 Recommendations 39 BIBLIOGRAPHY 42 ANNEX: METHODOLOGY OF COOPAfrica-CAK-MUCCoBS-UCA RESEARCH 45 LIST OF BOXES: Box 1: What is a cooperative? 2 survey results Africa Box 2: Use of services in financial and agricultural cooperatives - Coop survey results Africa 118 Box 3:4: Women’sEmployment participation in cooperatives in governance - Coop & leadershipsurvey results - Coop 12 Box 5: Legal obstacles to women’s participationAfrica in cooperatives Box 6: Hindrances to women’s membership - summary of Coop survey responses Africa 1820 Box 7: Member testimonies on the impacts of cooperative membership 24 agricultural member survey Africa 25 Box 8: Economic benefits of cooperative membership - results of Coop agricultural member survey Africa 26 Box 9:10: SocialExamples benefits of cooperative-level of cooperative membership steps - results of Coop Box 11: Examples of action by support agencies Box 12: Examples of pro-active legislation 35 36 LIST OF FIGURES: 37 survey (regional average) Africa Figure 1: Female and male loan use in cooperatives covered by the Coop 9 8 Figure 2: Femalemanagers and in male ACEs membership (Uganda) changes in Ugandan ACEs, 2007-2010 10 Figure 3: Number of female and male board members, chairpersons and included in the Coop survey Figure 4: Occupational distributionAfrica of female and male employees in cooperatives 14 13 Figure 5: membersFemale and after male joining enrolment cooperative at MUCCoBS (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) 27 Figure 6: Family division of labour changes for married agricultural cooperative members after joining cooperative (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) Figure 7: Family decision-making changes for married agricultural cooperative LIST OF TABLES: 28 7 Table 1: membersShare of women after joining in primary cooperative cooperatives (Kenya, (Kenya, Tanzania Tanzania and Uganda) and Uganda) based Table 2: onProductivity Coop surveyand profitability changes for agricultural cooperative 25 Africa Preface International Labour Organization (ILO) research shows that approximately 7 per in Kenya alone, cooperatives provide some two million employment opportunities. centRecognizing of the African the impact population of cooperatives is affiliated to on the poverty cooperative reduction, movement, employment and that generation and social integration, the United Nations General Assembly has