Non-formal education and farm cooperatives in West Africa

The performance of Senegalese multi-village farm cooperatives has been disastrous in regard to both credit functions (with repayment rates of less than 65% in 1,500 of 1,700 cooperatives) and marketing functions (with misuse of funds and embezzlement widespread). Reasons for these failures are best indicated by the successful experience of Mali, where individual village (not multi-village) cooperatives were able to generate substantial capital and put that capital to collective and profitable use - in at least one instance to the direct benefit of women farmers, who to date have scarcely participated in West African cooperatives. In addition, a simple, local-language accounting system (largely lacking in rural Africa) was developed and literacy training aimed at managing the economically proposerous cooperatives encouraged.