SESCOOP Financing and Investment Cooperative Limited, a body that oversees tens of thousands of registered cooperative societies in the South East geopolitical zone, has arranged a partnership initiative with Rockspring Global Consulting Limited, to provide information and communication technology (ICT) materials to cooperative groups in the region.
SESCOOP was formed in June 2012 in Enugu after a resolution of all cooperative groups in the South East to effectively take advantage of a changing global financing architecture, to highlight attention on cooperative societies in the region as the finance intermediation and funding groups involved in three development metrics of: social capital formation, knowledge creation and poverty alleviation.
The collaboration, BusinessDay was told in Owerri, Monday, would see to the provision of a computer set, an electricity generating set, a printer and other materials to each of the cooperative societies in the South East.
It was gathered the move was aimed at repositioning the cooperative groups to key into a framework of developing a non-petroleum base economy for the South East region, which is being driven by organised cooperatives in the region under the aegis of SESCOOP.
According to Geoffrey Madu Samuel, president of SESCOOP, the initiative will kick-start with an initial 200 cooperative societies, while more than 5,000 cooperatives will benefit on the long run.
Samuel noted that there was need for cooperative groups in the region to be upgraded and be in sync with global trends in cooperative movement.
Seeing the downward plunge in Nigeria’s mono-economy crude oil, with the attendant negative effects on the economies of the federating states, and an urgent need to diversify the revenue sources, SESCOOP has been at the vanguard of rejigging the South East economy through cooperative participation, as the finance intermediation and funding groups involved in the development metrics of social capital formation, knowledge creation and poverty alleviation.
Meanwhile, the body is holding an investment and exhibition later this week, to open a discourse on Cooperative Business Enterprise (CBE) financing towards developing a non-petroleum base economy for the five states of the South East region.
The event will be used to open up opportunities that exist, and have long been hidden in cooperative business enterprise.
