Securing legal accreditation is vital for cooperative success and to secure land rights for female members of the cooperative. The CLEAR (The Centre for Land, Economy and Rights of Women) project in Uganda and Kenya notes that access to and control of land and other natural resources is crucial for the livelihood needs of rural poor households, but major social, political, and institutional challenges prevent the rural poor from gaining secure tenure rights. Such challenges are more pronounced for women due to widespread patriarchal control of resources, particularly land, and unequal distribution of roles and responsibilities.

The Women of Liberia Peace Network (WOLPNET) helped 45 vulnerable and 65 war-affected female residents from the Maimu Salala district of Liberia to form an agricultural cooperative, thereby increasing their earning capacity. The success of the project is largely attributed to the fact that the beneficiaries and project coordinators worked in unison with the Cooperative Development Agency of Liberia (CDA) to ensure that the Maimu Women Agriculture Cooperative met all the requirements for government accreditation. In Angola, the project initiated by SOS CEDIA aimed to facilitate the economic empowerment of rural women from the Zaire province. They focused on creating an enabling environment for women to carry out agricultural activities by organising the 103 beneficiaries into a legally recognised agricultural cooperative, namely the KUZI Agricultural and Livestock Production Cooperative.

An important role of agricultural cooperatives is to assist communities in the commercialisation of surpluses and the identification of markets. They ensure that a fair price is paid to producers for their products and increase the bargaining power of its members. Cooperatives further assist members to access credit and negotiate fair credit facilities. For example, in Mozambique the project by CARA (Institute for Research, Advocacy and Citizenship) contributed towards the economic empowerment of 2,197 rural women by organising them into 83 associations. These cooperatives played an important role in assisting the women to find suitable markets, particularly for surplus produce.

A problem identified by CEPGL (Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries) in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is that women involved with cross-border informal trade do not have access to bank credit facilities. They must rely on household resources or money borrowed from family or friends. The project sought to increase their economic capacity by encouraging the formation of cooperatives to increase the possibility of lines of credit becoming available. Consortium Six S Grapes (Action Research Group for Economic and Social Promotion) assisted with the formation of 40 village and community cooperatives in Mali and provided them with seed funding. Using this credit line, the 1,560 women beneficiaries could pursue various income-generating activities and generate a considerable net profit. Credit provision continues even after the conclusion of the project through the reinvestment ofincome generated by these activities. Credit activities subsequently became the centre of interest of village cooperative meetings.

Some of the problems faced by agricultural cooperatives include poor management, inadequate training, the free-rider problem and a lack of communication among participants. To overcome these problems, organisations should prioritise the training of cooperative managers and engage in capacity-building projects and provide assistance during the formulation of cooperatives. To overcome free riding, mechanisms should be established so that the benefits which accrue to members of the cooperative are in line with the efforts of the member. Furthermore, the reformulation of government policies governing cooperatives and lobbying efforts to support the harmonisation of laws governing cooperatives in Africa, will benefit cooperative development in Africa.

Several of the projects funded by the NEPAD Spanish Fund for African Women Empowerment encountered many of these obstacles and some tried to pre-empt such problems by addressing one or more of these issues. The FDC (Foundation for Community Development) aimed to establish national, regional and continental networks to empower women entrepreneurs and women in business. Challenges they encountered included lack of access to information on business issues; government laws and regulation; weak professionalisation; inadequate networking; and lack of financial support.

The Women of Liberia Peace Network (WOLPNET) project team worked in unison with the Cooperative Development Agency of Liberia (CDA) to ensure that the Maimu Women Agriculture Cooperative met all the requirements for government accreditation. They further identified the need for the development of motivational strategies, creation of opportunities for learning, sharing, and constant engagement as core issues that should be addressed by such a cooperative venture. The YEYA Agricultural Organisation project in the Côte d'Ivoire identified an urgent need for training sessions to support the women’s groups engaged in traditional poultry and rice farming and the cascading of information about cultivation. The project initiated by CFEMA (National Council of Women Entrepreneurs in Mali), likewise engaged in training to strengthen the organisational, technical, material and financial capacities of organisations of women traders and entrepreneurs in Mali. The MINICOM (Ministry of Trade and Industry) project in Rwanda, in turn, engaged the women trade cooperatives in capacity-building programmes.