Improving Institutional Capacity:
Strengthening Farmer Organizations in the OIC Member Countries
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and legal framework consistent with the nature and functioning of cooperatives. This among
other things involves99:
 Establishment of an institutional framework allowing for the registration of cooperatives
in a rapid and seamless manner
 The promotion of policies aimed at allowing for the creation of appropriate reserves, some
of which should be indivisible and some of which will include solidarity funds within
cooperatives
 The treatment of cooperatives in accordance with national law and practice, should be on
terms no less favorable than those accorded to other enterprise and social organisational
forms
 Special consideration should be given to increasing women’s participation, and other
disadvantaged groups, in the cooperative movement at all levels but in particular at
management and leadership levels
 National policies should provide for the facilitation of access to key requirements such as
credit, markets, and information. In addition to this, there is a need for policies to provide
for the development of technical, vocational, entrepreneurial and managerial skills and the
general economic and social policy skills of members.
The Recommendation also aims to define the legal obligations of cooperatives in areas such as
registration, financial and social audits. More importantly, the Recommendation, in adopting
cooperative values, has proposed a decentralized cooperative governance model, with the
formulation and implementations of cooperative policy occurring at a local level100.
The Recommendation is important, not only because it provides an administrative, regulatory
and policy framework that guides the promotion of cooperatives but because it also offers an
implementation model that frames the role of the public sector. Historically, cooperatives have
been an avenue for the extension of state control and the provision of extension in the case of
agriculture and other important social and public goods. However, the values of autonomous
and member-controlled governance of cooperatives mean that the state should play a
complementary rather than controlling role.
The Recommendation proposes that the governments should facilitate access to cooperatives
to support services that will strengthen them, their capacity and the viability of their
enterprises. These services include access to finance and investment, accountancy and audit
services, human resource development, research and management consultancy services.
Governments should facilitate the establishment of these support services and cooperatives
should be encouraged to participate in the organization and management of these services,
and where possible, finance them. The journey since 2002 hasn’t just ended in the adoption of
the formal international standard as governance best practice but the involvement of the ILO
in making Recommendation 193 a ‘living document’ has also included providing advisory
services to governments and cooperative bodies in numerous countries around the world.
Today, OIC countries such as Guinea-Bissau, Malaysia, Uganda, Benin, Egypt, and Indonesia
have all adopted the Recommendation and implemented national cooperative strategies in line
with the spirit of the Recommendation101. Indeed, even the francophone L’Organisation pour
l’Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires (Organization for the Harmonization of
99 International Labor Organisation, Recommendation 193 on the Promotion of Cooperatives. Geneva, June 2002
100 Ibid
101 Anthony Murray, 12 Years Later: What has been achieved since the ILO called on governments to promote cooperatives? Co-
operative News 4 July 2014