Staatliche Genossenschaftsförderung in den Philippinen: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung leistungsfähiger Genossenschaften?

Abstract Like other Third World countries the Philippines emphasized the promotion of cooperatives as strategic instruments for the implementation of government programs. Since they had to fulfill official functions those state-sponsored cooperatives never were able to develop a bottom-up participation of members and target groups. Particularly in the agrarian sector failures in promoting cooperatives were followed by new programs hardly differing from preceding approaches. This observation holds true for the first FACOMA program and the new cooperative development plan as well which was initiated in 1972. The results of this study justify drawing some general conclusions concerning the discouraging results of governmental cooperative promotion pro- grams: - Since rural development is given too little emphasis within national development programs, rural based cooperatives are not allowed to play an active role in the development process. - Cooperatives very often seem to be used as instruments to control the rural population and to stabilize the political system of the respective region. - Macro-economic andpoliticalexpectations of the social and economic contributions of cooperatives usually diverge from traditional cooperative objectives. - Government promoters who initiate and implement cooperatives generally disregard fundamental cooperative principles, e.g. participation of members, ability of the target group to take over responsibilities, homogeneity of members etc. - Officialized cooperatives are dominated by representatives of social elites who are in a better position to make use of the benefits granted. - Being usually obliged to render services also to non-members these cooperatives suffer from lack of support of their members. - Traditional social and economic relations between members and non-members reduce the potential number of transactions with the cooperative and reduce its ability to survive.