We have again commemorated National Cooperatives Day with a question on how to maintain cooperatives’ relevance to the changing era. During the commemorative event, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo pointed out that digital technology had caused major changes.
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We have again commemorated National Cooperatives Day on Thursday with a question on how to maintain cooperatives’ relevance to the changing era.
During the commemorative event for the 71th anniversary of National Cooperatives Day, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo pointed out that digital technology had caused major changes. The President called on the cooperatives to take advantage of the current changes by utilizing digital technology to market their products.
Utilizing digital technology to develop the cooperatives is both a challenge and an opportunity. Digital technology also gives birth to a shared economy, as we have seen through the Go-Jek, Grab and Airbnb ride-hailing services.
Basically, cooperatives are a form of shared economy: A group of people sharing a common goal that make united efforts together to benefit mutually.
The President wants Indonesian cooperatives to be active internationally, operating in many different countries and have a turnover of billions of US dollars.
A number of cooperatives in the Netherlands, Japan, the US, New Zealand and other developed countries with a capitalist system are able to compete with multinational companies. The difference is that these cooperatives are owned by many members that work toward their members’ interests, not by a handful venture capitalists or investors.
Mohammad Hatta, the “Father of Cooperatives”, believed that the shared economy was the system most suited to Indonesia, because of its natural collectivism, self-reliance and short production-consumption chain through distribution mastery.
Through cooperatives, members that have small businesses can raise enough capital to join forces in running their businesses together. Joining a cooperative will make the businesses more efficient and productive. The economy of a business is not static. Technology plays an important role in determining efficiency. Here, digital technology can help cooperatives improve their efficiency, such as by utilizing online sales facilities and developing a shared economy.
With the excellent rationale for cooperatives, why are Indonesia’s cooperatives unable to develop?
There are many things that hinder cooperatives’ growth in Indonesia. One of these is the need for awareness among members on working together and sharing their results equally. In practice, not a few cooperatives fail because their members are not consolidated. Or, when the cooperative expands, its members are unable to control their board so it goes bankrupt.
If we believe that the cooperatives are a cornerstone of the economy – and this is evidenced by the existence of a ministry that is specifically in charge of cooperatives – it is not too much for us to ask the ministry to guide the cooperatives toward development in the midst of global economic changes and the digital revolution.
We hope, as President Jokowi also expects, that the cooperatives\' contribution to the national economy will have increased significantly when National Cooperatives Day comes around again next year.