Building the infrastructure for cooperative enterprise

Co-ops Africa is a cooperative economy development platform focused on connecting cooperative finance, commercial activity and member-centred financial services within an integrated economic ecosystem.

Who we are

We believe cooperatives can play a greater role in Africa's economic development when they have access to the infrastructure, financial mechanisms, commercial networks and institutional partnerships required to grow.

Our approach is built around a practical understanding of the cooperative enterprise lifecycle. Cooperatives need more than finance alone. They need productive inputs, reliable suppliers, access to customers, efficient transactions, capable management and opportunities to reinvest in their businesses.

Co-ops Africa brings these needs together through three complementary pillars: CDEx, Co-op Store and Co-op Pay.

Our purpose is to help cooperatives transform collective resources into productive assets, sustainable enterprises and long-term economic opportunity.

Our vision

To help build a connected African cooperative economy in which cooperatives have the infrastructure and opportunities to mobilise capital, produce competitively, trade efficiently and create shared prosperity.

Our mission

To develop and connect the financial, commercial and digital infrastructure that enables cooperatives to access appropriate financing, strengthen their enterprises, participate in wider markets and improve the economic wellbeing of their members.

Our philosophy — development is about people

Economic development should be measured not only by the volume of capital mobilised or the number of enterprises established, but also by the opportunities created for people to participate meaningfully in economic life.

Cooperation provides a framework through which individuals can combine their skills, resources, purchasing power and productive capacity to pursue objectives that may be difficult to achieve independently.

Co-ops Africa seeks to strengthen this framework by connecting the people who produce, the enterprises that trade, the institutions that provide capital and the communities that benefit from economic activity.

Core values

Our core values

Six commitments that shape how every cooperative, member and partner is treated across the platform.

Core value

Cooperation

We believe collective action can unlock opportunities that individual enterprise cannot — shared buying, shared equipment, shared risk and shared return.

Core value

Democratic participation

Members govern the enterprise that serves them, one member one vote, through the structures set out in their own constitution.

Core value

Integrity and accountability

Records, disclosures and decisions are kept open to members and to the regulator, because trust is the working capital of cooperation.

Core value

Innovation

Cooperative enterprise grows when it adopts better machinery, better systems and better routes to market — deliberately, not by accident.

Core value

Sustainability

Structures are designed to outlive the transaction: productive assets, replenished reserves and enterprises members can hand on.

Core value

African economic participation

The ambition is ownership — African cooperatives holding equity in the value chains they work in, not only supplying them.

Let's build together

Let's build Africa's cooperative economy together.

Register your cooperative, apply for supplier accreditation, or start a conversation about investment, financing and institutional collaboration.