COOPERATIVES FOR WHOM? 53
estimates, this time using the landholding heterogeneity—measured as the coefficient of variation of members’ landholdings—as the dependent variable. Although we do not find a clear negative effect of personal membership cri- teria (location, age, or assets), financial criteria appear to be a statistically significant factor in membership.
By and large, these results do support the hypothesis that cooperative membership is driven partly by household self-selection and partly by cooper- ative exclusion policies. We find interesting that the exclusion of community members is not clearly stated as a policy but rather is implemented through potentially disqualifying financial criteria. This tacit approach may be related to the organization’s need to gain social acceptance and establish its legiti- macy as well as to reduce the potential for intracommunity disharmony and jealousy—a phenomenon also observed in RPO studies in West Africa (for example, Bernard et al. 2008). The desire for such social acceptance may also explain the range of activities undertaken by the organization.
Public Goods and Services, and Spillover Effects
An organization’s inclusiveness may be defined more broadly than simply in terms of its membership. It may also be measured by whether an RPO’s bene- fits extend beyond its membership base. For instance, ECS (2006) data reveal that 90 percent of nonmembers living in a kebele where a cooperative exists declared that they benefit “somehow” from the presence of the organization. This level is all the more important considering that only 24 percent of these organizations reported being engaged in any type of provision of public goods for the community.
As shown in Table 4.5, an average marketing cooperative in Ethiopia reports being simultaneously engaged in more than four separate activities.6 Some of these are clearly complementary to marketing, shown in the upper part of the table. For instance, 84 percent of these organizations are also engaged in input provision, and 54 percent aim to provide credit to their members. Other activities are more remote from the marketing objective of the organi- zation; these appear in the lower part of the table. Overall, 74 percent of the marketing organizations are also involved in nonmarketing-related activities, ranging from consumption services to HIV prevention.
6 This figure does not imply that the cooperative is effectively providing this service, but rather that the service is part of its declared objectives. For instance, as discussed in the next chap- ter, a large proportion of the cooperatives that declare being engaged in output marketing had not actually provided such service to their members for at least 2 years.
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