Women's Cooperatives in Cameroon: The Cooperative Experiences of the Northwest and Southwest Provinces

Abstract

In the history of the cooperative movement in anglophone Cameroon, women's cooperatives have played a particularly small role. Although the first cooperatives opened in the anglophone portion of the country in the 1920s and a small-scale women's project was attempted in the 1950s, the currently existing cooperatives for women began only in 1970. Today, in terms of number of members, amount of capitalization, scale of economic transactions, number of viable (or even operating) organizations, or any other measure, the women's cooperatives account for only a small portion of the total cooperative movement. In early 1970, beginning in the southern, coastal portions of the then West Cameroon state (the anglophone state in the bilingual Federal Republic of Cameroon) several governmental bodies and the women's wing of the Cameroon National Union (WCNU) began to organize women in urban areas in palm oil cooperatives. A number of societies came into being in a short period of time and the idea soon spread from its original site in the Southwest Province to the Northwest Province. Most of the original structures established in the coastal area have failed, but those in the Northwest Province continue to exist, though with a mixed record of success. Although in many respects the experiments in the Southwest and Northwest were similar, there are differences in purpose, governmental involvement, and social situation that may be related to the differences in success. Interviews with Cameroon officials and foreign assistance workers, archival and documentary material, and personal observations during two periods of research in Cameroon (1975-76 and 1980-81) have provided the data upon which to compare and analyze these two experiences.