Agricultural Cooperatives Governance in Menoua, West Region of Cameroon

Abstract

Governance plays a major role in the management of agricultural Cooperatives and it is based on certain norms and rules which guide Cooperative organizations. Cooperatives in Menoua division do their best in managing their Cooperative but face some limits to what is expected from them. Even though they contribute to rural development they face some limits in governance which is in most part caused by OHADA law. OHADA law wanting to improve upon the system of governance in Cooperative has caused another problem. However, to come out with these limits, investigation was carried out on 16 agricultural Cooperatives. We administered 459 questionnaires which were of two types, one to each president or delegate (PCA) of a group concerning the management of their Cooperative and the other one to members to know the level of their satisfaction toward the system of governance.  We also used interviews where we discussion with experts in Cooperative law at MINADER-Bafoussam, the CGO (the Organisation Management advisory agent) of ACEFA in Menoua division which is a non-governmental Organisation) and participation (where we took part in their meetings). This permitted to bring out the challenges faced by agricultural Cooperatives in governing their Cooperative and propose a long-lasting solution to these problems. This article shows the limits of agricultural Cooperative in governance in Menoua division. We use the hypo-deductive method to come out with the result.