An overview on Co-operative societies in Bangladesh

Abstract

Co-operative is a kind of social enterprise which is defined by the international co-operative Alliances’ as an autonomous association of persons’ united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. Though are very little specification and justification what is social enterprise is, it is acknowledged that social enterprise is intending for the social benefit rather than profitability in numerical values. We see the co-operative is originated and cooperated by the people of similar class or society to protect their interest and for the socio-economical development collectively. Historically, cooperative is playing the same role of protecting the low earner and developing their socio-economic condition from the first cooperative in England till now. Though there are some dishonest people is trying to take the advantages of social enterprise goodwill doing microfinance and other financial activities for personal or family benefits in Bangladesh, the effective law has developed by the government and  proper implantation could remove this type of activities. The overall cooperative situation in Bangladesh is not expected it ought to be. The prime reasons may be the proper knowledge, unawareness, lack of trust, imperfection of the market competition and corruption.

The objectives of the study are as follows:

1. To critically analyze the evolution and the present scenario of the cooperatives in Bangladesh
2. Find out the necessary steps to take for the cooperatives development