South Africa has some of the highest mobile voice and data costs in the world. A project to deliver affordable services and keep money in communities with high unemployment rates could be the answer.
Promoting mechanisation for small scale farmers in Africa is proving incredibly difficult.
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Mechanisation of agricultural activity can help many African countries unlock underutilised agricultural potential. But there are serious obstacles which must be removed.
Workers aren’t the only people worried about Uber’s business practices.
Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
The shocking and rapid resignation of Euan Sutherland, the chief executive of the Co-operative Group, shines a light on the clash of cultures being played out at the top of this organisation. Sutherland…
More people in fewer cars, especially in the countryside.
Owen Humphreys/PA
As a parallel to fuel poverty, where the cost of heating and lighting accounts for 10% of a household’s income, the RAC Foundation has suggested a similar idea of transport poverty. And while Britain’s…
Moving from cooperative to corporation could lure foreign investment for grain marketing group CBH, funding its aggressive expansion plans.
AAP/Dan Peled
Long a favoured model for Australian farmers operating in a risky and precarious industry, cooperatives seem increasingly anachronistic as greater numbers move toward demutualisation. This is a mistake…
Troubled bank is co-operating with the authorities.
Rui Vieira/PA
Collapsing business deals, massive financial losses, and a “junk” rating have made recent months a nightmare for the Co-op Bank. In March it announced losses of £634m for the 2012 financial year, largely…
The Basque cooperative Mondragon has remained resilient, despite Spain’s deepening economic slump.
Flickr\Fagor Automation
Back in the early 1980s, the former Secretary of State for Education in Harold Wilson’s Labour government, Shirley Williams, alerted me to a remarkable instance of regional economic development through…
Fonterra is one of the world’s largest cooperative organisations. But will its changed capital structure still allow it to be a cooperative at heart?
Onno B
Yesterday, 10,500 New Zealand farmers voted to allow Fonterra, one of the world’s leading dairy cooperatives, to be exposed to outside investors for the first time. 66.45% of Fonterra members voted for…
Cooperatives are among the largest and oldest businesses in Australia. But the structure is often misunderstood.
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Tim Mazzarol, The University of Western Australia e Elena Limnios, The University of Western Australia
2012 is the United Nation’s International Year of the Co-operative. This is a once in 25 year opportunity to acknowledge these important but often misunderstood businesses. What is a co-operative or mutual…