1.7 Reflection

Activity 1 Reviewing co-operative resilience

Timing: Spend about an hour or so on this activity.

If you have not already paused to reflect on the sections above, now is the time to do so.

First take about half an hour to write some notes in response to the following prompts:

  • Identify any examples of co-operatives or collectively organised producer or consumer organisations known to you that seem to have been particularly resilient in your view.
  • Make a note of what you think the main reasons are for this resilience.
  • Now think about any examples of co-operatives or collectively organised producer or consumer organisations known to you that do not seem to have been resilient.
  • Again, make a note of what you think the explanation is.

If you wish to take your study further, you might search for and read one of the documents I have mentioned above. Obviously feel free to search for others if you wish to extend the activity, depending on the time you have available and your personal reading speed.

You can find both Birchall and Ketilson (2009) [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] and Allen and Maghimbi (2009) on the International Labour Organization website.

There is also a policy brief to be found on the ILO website, which discusses the resilience of co-operatives: ‘The resilience of social and solidarity enterprises: the case of co-operatives’, Global Jobs Pact Policy Brief No 10. To find this, go to the ILO website, search for Global Jobs Pact Policy Briefs, and that will take you to a full list of the Briefs, where you can find Brief No 10.

The Birchall (2013) article can be found in the free online Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity.

The working paper by Borda-Rodriguez and Vicari (2013), which also contains a review of literature about the Ugandan co-operative movement, can be found on the website of the Innovation, Knowledge and Development Centre of The Open University: http://www.open.ac.uk/ ikd/. Go to Publications and then click on the link for Working Papers.

1.6 Is resilience only about crisis?