Co-operatives and nation-building in post-apartheid South Africa: Contradictions and challenges

Abstract

After nearly a century of struggling for a non-racial, democratic South Africa, in 1994 the African National Congress (ANC) became the first democratically elected government with the overwhelming majority of votes cast in its favour. The ANC-led government very quickly proclaimed a commitment to co-operative development through its Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Since then the ‘co-operative’ idea and the ‘role of a co-operative movement’ in post-apartheid development have been articulated in numerous presidential State of the Nation addresses and mid-term reports to parliament. In 2005 a new Co-operatives Act was passed, having gone through five years of refinement with input from various actors such as government, the co-operative movement and independent support organisations. While the Act is an important step in post-apartheid co-operative development, co-operative policy has often been highly influenced by the neo-liberal macro-economic policy framework and discourse that the state has simultaneously pursued. More specifically, a neo-liberalised Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) policy framework and discourse, with a strong emphasis on market-led development, has appropriated the role of co-operatives in development and underpinned the ANC’s nation building emphasis.