Leadership Training Manual for Women Leaders of Cooperatives

Leadership Training Manual for Women

Leaders of Cooperatives

International Labour Office

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Leadership Training Manual for Women Leaders of Cooperatives ISBN 92-2-117066-7

92-2-118173-1 (web pdf)

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Designed and printed in India

Foreword

The ICA and ILO partnership dates back to as early as 1920, when technical cooperation and collaboration started between the two organizations. The Common Cooperative Agenda for ILO and ICA Joint Action, formalized on 10 February 2004, served to further consolidate the long standing partnership, towards achieving the common objective of combating social exclusion and poverty through cooperative development.

While enumerating the basic principles and implementation guidelines, the Agenda gives top priority to promoting gender equality in all programme operations. This is critical to realizing the principle of democratic member participation, which forms the very foundation for cooperative functioning. The ICA Statement of Cooperative Identity (1995), and the new ILO Recommendation for Promotion of Cooperatives (2002), seek to promote "the fullest participation in economic and social development of all people."

However, women's participation in formally registered mixed cooperatives remains low as compared to men. Socio-economic and cultural conditioning over the ages, account for their low confidence levels and lack of leadership skills, linked with the obvious lack of opportunities for education, training or exposure, communication and networking. Studies undertaken by the ILO on "Legal Constraints to Women's Participation in Cooperatives" (2002), reveal that while national laws are generally `gender neutral', there remain other constraints linked to other related laws including customary law, which restrict women from conducting businesses independently or accessing positions of leadership and decision making.

The ICA-Asia Pacific, through its regional Women's Committee, launched a campaign to impress upon member cooperatives and Governments to adopt appropriate measures to enable the promotion of women's participation in cooperatives. Way back in May 1997, the ICA Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ICAROAP) and the Asian Women in Cooperative Development Forum (AWCF) organized a conference on "Women in Decision Making" and declared the need to build women's capacities for equal participation in cooperative functioning, leadership and decision making.

Towards this end, an ICA /ILO collaborative process was initiated in 1997, to produce a training manual to enable cooperative trainers towards facilitating women's leadership development in cooperatives. It may be argued that many training tools for women's empowerment and gender sensitization are already in existence. However, the specific requirements in terms of cooperative management procedures called for a training tool specific to women in cooperatives. The draft manual was jointly authored and was revised following a validation workshop in Bangkok in August 2001. The joint validation process resulted in a more concise format, with participatory, user friendly methodologies. The revised version has since been tested and successfully used by the ICA in four training programmes so far, namely in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October 2002, Pune, India in June 2003, Bandung, Indonesia in March 2004 and in Isfahan, Iran in June 2004. The programmes have been well received and need is now felt for its publication, for wider dissemination and use.

The Manual consists of seven modules, comprising several units, and draws upon existing ILO tools on gender analysis, equality and development. The topics broadly cover fundamentals of cooperatives, gender sensitization and self transformation, leadership, coping with challenges, organization and enterprise management. While the Manual aims at building women's capacities and may require only women's participation in some of the modules, in others, a general participation of both men and women is recommended towards securing a total commitment.

We trust the manual will be useful for cooperative trainers towards facilitating gender equity and equality and thereby ensuring a truly democratic process, with total gender integration and participation at all levels of cooperatives.

Rahaiah Baheran Chairperson, ICA Regional Women's Committee for Asia and Pacific International Cooperative Alliance

Jurgen Schwettmann Chief, Cooperative branch Job Creation and Enterprise Development Department International Labour Organization

Introductory Remarks

The history of ICA Asia Pacific initiative for integrating women and gender concerns in cooperatives begins in the early eighties when this office introduced a special women's programme during the United Nations Women's Decade (1975-1985). The ICA-ROAP , through this programme, had been able to create awareness and conducive environment for enhancing women's participation in cooperatives.

In 1990, the Human Resources Development Project of the ICA identified need for gender integration and put women's participation as an important agenda with a view to answer the big question on gender integration-how? It was felt that there should be an effective and ongoing need based programme for capacity building of women as well as of the cooperatives. Since the region is full of socio-cultural diversity and needs of women are different in different countries, the ICA commissioned a study in 14 different countries in the region to identify the situation and requirements of women in cooperatives.

The situation analysis which emerged from the studies formed an important basis for developing need-based programmes. In order to finalize necessary actions based on the results and to sensitize the member cooperative organizations for gender integration, a regional consultation was held in Sri Lanka in 1992 followed by a more strategic Gender Planning Conference in Tokyo in 1993. During this time the ICA ROAP office was able to establish a specific gender programme unit in the office. Meanwhile, in 1995 the ICA adopted its identify statement, which mentioned the importance of gender for the first time. Thereafter, several Regional Consultations/Conferences were organized. As a result of continuous efforts and increasing activities on gender integration, ICA Regional Women's Committee for Asia and Pacific was formed in 1997. The ICA, with Asian Women in Development Forum, held a conference in Tagaytay, Philippines, in May 1997 focusing on capacity building of women as well as cooperatives for leadership development of women and gender integration at all levels of cooperatives in the region.

The event led to an effective collaboration between ICA ROAP and ILO COOPNET and a joint Regional preparatory workshop was held on Cooperative Leadership Training for Women (Dec. 1997). Both agreed to collaborate to develop a trainers' training manual for leadership development of women in cooperatives.

The manual was validated in 2001 and has already been tested in four Regional Trainers' Training Programmes. Though the manual suggests twelve days for the training programme, there is practical difficulty for trainees to spare two weeks at a stretch for the training. Therefore, the text can be reorganized to fit in 5 days of class room training and one day study visit to a successful cooperative.

The manual will be disseminated to all the members of ICA in the region. I hope this will be helpful in enhancing skills and capacity of women to take up leadership responsibilities in their cooperatives.

Shil Kwan Lee Regional Director International Cooperative Alliance ? Asia Pacific

vi

Foreword

Leadership Training Manual for Women

Leaders of Cooperatives

USERS' GUIDE INTRODUCTORY SESSION MODULE 1 : GENDER IN COOPERATIVES MODULE 2 : FUNDAMENTALS OF COOPERATIVES MODULE 3 : SELF TRANSFORMATION MODULE 4 : WHAT IS EXPECTED OF A COOPERATIVE LEADER MODULE 5 : COPING WITH CHALLENGES MODULE 6 : COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT MODULE 7 : COMMITMENT TO GENDER EQUITY AND EQUALITY IN

COOPERATIVES

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