D: Rural Development

This chapter is a specialized contribution on the co-operatives’ role in rural development. In both developed and developing countries, there are examples of producer organizations and co-operatives that are innovative and have proven to be successful in helping small scale producers overcome different constraints. However, they too often remain limited in scale and scope. The main challenge is to build on these success stories in order to catalyse sustainable rural development. FAO and the development community calls for a reorientation of interventions to recognize co-operatives’ and producer organizations’ capacities to make informed choices in front of different agendas and actors that are more powerful. Support to such organizations needs to build on existing organizational development processes in order to stimulate the active engagement of their members in their own development path, appreciate their own successes and build on existing assets. The examples provided are from Argentina, Benin and Ethiopia and offer a concrete idea on how co-operatives can contribute to rural development and to the socio-economic development of the communities where they operate.