The Role of Co-operatives in Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in South Africa

Dr Antonie van Rensburg

Just as governments need economic growth policies and models, communities at grassroots level also need them to improve the livelihoods of their members. In this article, I present a business model that I have developed with Mrs Wezi Ximiya to address the economic development of poor people in rural communities through cooperative structures. Interventions to establish cooperative village banks in South Africa in the early 1990s lie at the heart of this economic development model. However, these co-operative institutions met with mixed success, and during 2002 we developed a new strategy and operating model to address the form, function and implementation process for these pro-poor financial co-operative institutions.