Readers, particularly young men and women, will be able to explain that cooperatives, through self-help and mutual help, can create jobs and improve livelihoods across all sectors of the economy. These eighteen questions test your understanding of the power of cooperatives.
These eighteen questions are not an examination and nothing is scored. They are the questions a member, a committee chair or a prospective founder should be able to answer before taking a decision that affects other people’s money and work.
Work through them first and see how far you get. Where you stop is where the reading begins — the handbooks develop each answer in full, and the Learn section summarises the ground they cover.
Guidance for self-help through cooperatives. The answers are developed in the handbooks; work through the questions first and see how far you get.
What indicators show that your cooperative business is performing well? Explain five of them.
How do you monitor and control cooperative activities to ensure they follow plans approved at the Annual General Meeting (AGM)?
What are the seven management components that the committee of a start-up cooperative should present to members for approval?
What types of markets do you know, and which market applies to your agricultural commodity?
As chairperson of the supervisory committee, what should you consider when preparing a good report for the committee?
How can your commodity group generate additional income from every stage of your product’s value chain?
What are the value chain nodes of your commodity, and what types of cooperatives are needed at each stage?
How many departments or sections can your cooperative or union establish to provide specialised services to members?
What investments must your primary cooperative and union make? How can the national government support these investments to better serve members?
What are examples of job titles in cooperative societies at the primary, union, and federation levels?
What are examples of job titles in cooperatives operating in the mining sector?
How can you assess whether a staff member or committee member in your cooperative is useful and productive?
What opportunities for career growth exist in the cooperative sector?
How can family members in the diaspora continue investing in rural Kenya through cooperatives?
What is a special purpose vehicle (SPV), and how can it be useful in the cooperative sector?
How can you introduce positive change effectively in your group or cooperative society?
How can technical, commercial and management partnerships with government and international partners, such as Mercasa, help cooperatives in Africa expand access to international markets?
What are the benefits of belonging to a federation within your commodity value chain?
These questions cover the ground of both handbooks. The Power of Values-Based Cooperatives for Workers deals with organisation, roles and values; Youth Inclusion Strategies for Cooperatives with membership, leadership and job creation pathways. Questions on special purpose vehicles, value chain nodes and international market access are developed further in Job Creation Opportunities, in preparation.
Source: Questions for Self-Help Through Cooperatives, Shirikiana handbooks. Version of August 2026.
The handbooks work through each of these questions in detail.
Shirikiana —> to work with one another. The founding values of the cooperative movement, self-help, self-responsibility and solidarity, remain the most practical basis for collective enterprise. We join knowledge, applied action and ethical responsibility in member-owned, member-governed enterprise, guided by the International Cooperative Alliance’s principle of concern for community. We proceed incrementally, attribute every partner by name, and distinguish demonstrated capacity from stated intent.