A unique aspect of this exchange program is its international collaboration component, leveraging South Africa’s relationships on multiple fronts.

Within the BRICS partnership framework, we are coordinating with partners in India and China to explore development finance support and knowledge exchange. Both India and China have a wealth of experience in cooperative enterprises and advanced agricultural techniques.

Through BRICS, we aim to facilitate strategic exchanges — such as inviting experts from these countries to share insights and arranging visits for our South African delegates to model cooperative projects abroad. This South-South cooperation will allow us to learn how cooperatives in those countries have successfully scaled up and contributed to their national economies, and how similar success can be replicated here.

In addition, the program will leverage South Africa’s bilateral agreements with the United Kingdom and South Korea to identify complementary areas of cooperation. These established international relationships provide avenues for technical assistance, training opportunities, and possible co-investment in cooperative ventures.

For example, we foresee opportunities to collaborate with the UK on cooperative finance models (given the UK’s strong credit union and cooperative banking sector), and with South Korea on agricultural innovation and technology transfer (as South Korea has world-class expertise in technology-driven farming).

By tapping into these bilateral partnerships, the exchange program will broaden its support network, bringing in global best practices and resources to strengthen our local cooperative initiatives.