Completing cooperatives’ leadership committees

UGAMA is conducting, all around Rwanda , sessions of assistance in completing the required cooperative s’ leadership committees and training on their roles and responsibilities.

In the framework of the project entitled “Capacity development of aquaculture and horticulture cooperatives for food security and increased income of smallholder farmers in RWANDA” implemented by UGAMA in collaboration with ENABEL under funds of European Commission and Luxemburg Aid & Development, a set of activities have been planned in order to achieve the project objectives.

After the cooperative profiling that has been carried out through the data collection (interviews and group focus discussion) and data analysis to make the cooperative profile, all profiled cooperatives were categorized based on their various elements of the four components (cooperative governance, production (value chain development) and marketing, financial management and management tools, and partnership) as described in the profiling.

During profiling, it was realized that some cooperatives have incomplete committee/leadership and others cooperatives have surplus members in the committee and others does not have Market committee or other required special committees like Conflict resolution committee, Infrastructure committee, etc. This is an indication of poor leadership and prevent cooperative from benefiting different service that are available for well-structured cooperative. Due to this, UGAMA planned to help those cooperatives to overcome the highlighted issues: completing the required leadership committees and training them on roles and responsibilities of committees in place.

Module on the role and responsibilities of the leadership was elaborated by consulting the Law n° 057/2024 of 20/06/2024 governing cooperatives in Rwanda, and UGAMA is train the BoDs on the importance of having complete committee and the consequences of not having leadership. In addition, cooperative will be Assisted to fill gaps in committees that are not completed.

The sessions are undertaken for each cooperative among the 28 cooperatives both in aquaculture and horticulture, that have been identified as the cooperatives that are in needy of the service.
Teams of UGAMA staff and consultants are involved in the activity, where they are working in Musanze, Rutsiro, Karongi, Nyamasheke, Rusizi and Nyamagabe, Gatsibo, Ngoma, Gakenke, Rulindo, Rwamagana, Muhanga, Ruhango, Nyanza and Huye districts.