A savings and credit co-operative society, usually shortened to SACCO, is not simply a place to save money. It is a member-owned business built on a shared set of rules that co-operatives all over the world have agreed to follow. ASCA brings together agricultural and community-based societies that share these principles, so it is worth setting out plainly what the seven of them actually mean.
1. Voluntary and open membership
Anyone who can use the society’s services and is willing to accept the responsibilities of membership may join. Membership is not restricted on the basis of gender, social standing, race, politics or religion. In practice this means a society should be able to explain its joining requirements clearly, and those requirements should relate to the business of the society rather than to who a person is.
2. Democratic member control
Members control the society. They set its policies and elect the people who run it, and those leaders answer to the membership. The important detail is that at the primary society level each member has one vote, regardless of how much money they hold with the society. A member with a large deposit does not get a larger say than a member with a small one.
3. Member economic participation
Members contribute to the capital of their society and share fairly in what it produces. Part of that capital is normally held as the common property of the society rather than being paid out. Surpluses can be used to develop the society, to build reserves, to return value to members in proportion to their dealings with the society, or to support activities the members approve.
4. Autonomy and independence
Co-operatives are self-help organisations controlled by their members. When a society enters an agreement with government or raises money from outside sources, it must do so on terms that keep members in democratic control and keep the society independent.
5. Education, training and information
Societies provide education and training for members, elected leaders, managers and staff so that each can contribute properly to the society’s development. They also inform the wider public, and young people in particular, about what co-operatives are and how they work. This principle is the reason training sits at the centre of what an alliance like ASCA does for its members.
6. Co-operation among co-operatives
Societies serve their members best and strengthen the movement as a whole when they work together through local, national and international structures. A single agricultural society negotiating alone has limited weight. The same society acting alongside dozens of others has considerably more.
7. Concern for community
Co-operatives work for the sustainable development of their communities, through policies approved by their members. For an agricultural society this is rarely abstract. It shows up in the condition of the roads produce travels on, in access to inputs, and in whether young people see a future in farming.
Where these principles come from
These seven principles are not unique to Kenya. They are the internationally agreed statement of co-operative identity, maintained and published by the International Co-operative Alliance, and they are the same principles co-operatives apply from Nairobi to Nairn. Kenyan co-operative law and practice sit on top of them.
ASCA tests its own positions against these principles before it tests them against anything else. If a proposal cannot be squared with member control or with the independence of the societies involved, it does not proceed.
