Young Scholars Workshop on Cooperatives and Cooperation

Research is a powerful tool for improving people’s lives which, in turn, is a source for inspiring
further research. This interconnected relationship is particularly important for cooperatives which
have inspired research on different ways of human development but have also been nurtured and
stimulated by the research outcomes.

The Committee on Cooperative Research of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA CCR) has
been playing a critical role in connecting the researchers’ community with the cooperative
movement at the global level. ICA CCR and YSI and its regional networks have encouraged research on
cooperatives, organized regional and global research conferences and provided advice and
expertise to the cooperative movement worldwide. In Africa, although there has been increasing
interest in cooperatives and cooperative research, the cooperative researchers’ networks have not
been sufficiently active. Funding for research has been low as most of the African institutions do
not provide sufficient budgets for research due to their own inadequate resources. Identification of
partners for the development of proposals has been limited due to lower numbers of researchers
trained in grant writing.

On the occasion of the ICA Global Conference 2019 in Kigali, Rwanda, ICA CCR and the Young Scholars Initiative of the Institute of New Economic Thinking proposes a one-day meeting of cooperative researchers, on 14th October 2019 at Kigali Convention
Center.

The main agenda of the meeting will be to re-energize the CCR and YSI Africa network on Cooperativism. During the
meeting, researchers and cooperative movement leaders, mainly from African countries but also
other continents, international donors and other stakeholders will discuss the current situation of
cooperative research in Africa. A second goal of the meeting will be to identify a future agenda for
developing research and collaboration between the research community and the cooperative
movement in the Africa region.