African Activist Archive

Lockwood reports on a week-long grass-roots conference in Harare of 55 people from food production cooperatives in three SADCC (Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference) countries. They came to share experiences, problems and successes and to see if the ground could be laid for further people-to-people exchanges. Lockwood reports that the Third Congress of Frelimo in 1977 had urged that people be organized into collective villages (aldeis communais), based on agricultural cooperatives. Developing cooperatives in Mozambique has been held back by the war, in which MNR's armed bandits have committing atrocities, kidnaps, rapes and killings, and the government has had to relocate rural people into more secure areas with adequate water or other conditions for production. Lockwood reports that the cooperative movement in Tanzania, in eclipse from 1976 to 1982, is now rebuilding. After independence, the Tanzanian ruling party, TANU, and the government began to mobilize people for cooperatives; by 1975, more than 8,000 Ujamaa villages had been formed. In 1976, regional cooperative unions and primary marketing societies were abolished by law. After enactment of a new Cooperative Act in 1982, co-ops grew again. Lockwood reports that Zimbabwe collective cooperatives are unique in that the core of the movement is composed of ex-combatants from the liberation war. Lockwood discusses the Cooperative Union of Tanzania (CUT), the Organization of Collective Cooperatives in Zimbabwe (OCCZIM), and Central Association of Cooperative Unions (CACU). Lockwood reports that Morris Mutsambiwa of OCCZIM outlined some of the contradictions that Zimbabwe's collectives face and that Tanzania has a very extensive cooperative educational system. • Country Reports • Small Group Discussions • Finances • Production and Marketing • Education and Training • A VISIT TO A COLLECTIVE COOPERATIVE. NOW WE SEE WHAT YOU MEANT. • OTHER TOPICS FROM SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS • Decision-Making • Income Distribution • OTHER ACTIVITIES OF THE CONFERENCE • RESULTS • CONCLUSIONS

African Activist Archive

Southern Africa International Affairs Report

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