Rowan Sampson

Cooperatives, a Game Changer for Local Economic Emancipation in South Africa and Beyond

A cooperative is a business model where people unite with a common socio economic interest. The business is democratically owned and controlled, and generally each member has an equal proxy. Every member/worker shares the burden of success or failure—therefore the business is generally motivated and driven; hence cooperative businesses have significantly low failure rates of around 10 percent after the first year, whilst traditional businesses have a failure rate of around 60-80 percent after the first year.