Survey Report on the Establishment of National Cooperative Archive in Tanzania: Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

Moshi University College of Cooperative and Business Studies in collaboration with Cooperative College of Manchester launched a project known as “Preserving East African Co-operative Heritage (PEACH)” in January 2011. As the first step in implementing this project a team composed of staff from MUCCoBS and Cooperative College, Manchester conducted a survey in cooperatives and other stakeholders in seven regions of Tanzania. This survey was a pilot study aiming to identify the extent, availability, location and preservation needs of co-operative archives in Tanzania and establish potentials and challenges to establish National Cooperative archive. The surveys established the existence of a long range of cooperative records with archival value and therefore validated the intention of MUCCoBS to establish National Cooperative Archive. However many archival materials identified, were mostly in a bad condition, they are fragile, dirty, strained, brittle, crumbling, sometimes bent and full of rusty metal clips and they are stored in dirty rooms. Most cooperatives visited do not know the difference between archival records with long term value and records with no value that can be destroyed. The survey established that all cooperative stakeholders are supporting the idea of establishing National Cooperative Archive and are willing to surrender the archival materials to MUCCoBS for preservation. It was observed that there is high commitment of the management of MUCCoBS to establish the cooperative archive and the staff of the College needs some capacity building to acquire the required competency to manage the cooperative archive to be established. As a way forward it was proposed that MUCCoBS should strive to establish the repository to be used to preserve cooperative archive.

Key words: cooperative archive, cooperative society, repository, records, survey