Most cooperatives in Nicaragua were formed by State or international aid agencies to channel resources to rural populations. The end result is a plethora of organizations in Nicaragua with cooperative in their name, but whose actions do not reflect local initiative nor buy in, two key elements to the cooperative movement. In contrast, the way they operate promotes passivity among their members and concentrates power and key information in the hands of a few leaders, basically repeating the hacienda system´s form of operation, which intensifies on the local level the global tendency toward authoritarianism. Thus, cooperatives are not seen as an alternative to that system but have a reputation for not being transparent nor sources of innovation and territorial development in Nicaragua.

While we continue to work to help cooperatives in their attempts to bring about needed reforms, this experience has led us to study and explore other forms of community organizations which do involve local initiative and investment, have decentralized leadership, and hold quarterly assemblies where they share profits – community social enterprises. These organizations do represent an alternative to global authoritarianism. We are also studying traditional forms of community collaboration, like sharecropping and “mano vuelta” [shared labor].

Community owned and run stores can act as economic motors for rural communities, bringing in necessary goods from outside, and buying locally produced goods, thus saving costs of time and transportation for local producers and consumers. Furthermore, they create an incentive for the development of other local community enterprises, like milling and roasting services,  baked goods, breadmaking, vegetable and basic grain production, pork processing, etc, as all these products now have a place to be bought and sold locally, without having to be transported to the provincial capital and then brought back out to the community.

WPF has accompanied these community initiatives, learning from them as well as helping them develop forms of local co-investment, regular reporting and oversight, essential elements of transparency often missing in the cooperative movement.

Precisely for being local, these initiatives facilitate the participation of women, even those with small children, as they do not have to travel outside the community to attend meetings. Young women frequently serve as managers of community stores, keep records of the movement of inventory, provide regular reports to their local investors, work with suppliers to ensure supply, and manage loans for the local production of beans and coffee.

In 2022 with the Community Social Enterprise of San Juan del Rio Coco (CSE-SJRC) we decided to support them to establish direct relationships with coffee roasters in the US to help them capture a greater share in the price of a cup of coffee. They are a network of 6 communities who have alliances with cooperatives around coffee, communities in Waslala in the production and trade of basic grains, along with local transport operators and traders.

Words and translation of song written by leader of Community Social Enterprise, Freddy Pérez, “Somos del café”