My.Coop – Building capacity of cooperatives towards involving Syrian refugees and Jordanian farmers in agricultural value chains

My.Coop – Managing your agricultural cooperative training package was adapted to the Jordanian context and rolled out with cooperatives in northern Jordan to improve their capacities to help Syrian refugees and Jordanian farmers participate in income-generating activities.

News | 29 November 2018
My.Coop, a training programme on the management of agricultural cooperatives developed through a partnership of several organizations including ILO, FAO and ITC-ILO, has been adapted to the Jordanian context.

The adaptation is part of a project “Providing sustainable work opportunities to Syrian refugees and vulnerable Jordanians in the agricultural sector in northern Jordan”, funded by the US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration and implemented by ACTED in collaboration with the ILO. The project aims to promote integration and participation of Syrian refugees and vulnerable Jordanians in agricultural livelihood opportunities through enhancing capacities of eight ILO-network cooperatives in the governorates of Irbid and Mafraq in the northern Jordan.

Participants of the training
The four modules of My.Coop training package (basics of agricultural cooperatives; cooperative service provision; supply of farm inputs; and cooperative marketing) were enriched by adding a series of case studies and technical materials that are relevant to the realities of cooperatives in Jordan and in the Arab region. In addition, My.Coop Trainer’s Manual was adapted with 28 interactive learning activities and My.Coop Training Coordinator’s Manual was prepared to provide guidance to coordinators including on the selection of trainees and candidate cooperatives; the preparation of participants’ bio-data; the collection of necessary information to be provided by each cooperative before the training; and the training evaluation.

Participants of the training
In June 2018, a five-day training course was conducted by a certified My.Coop trainer Shawkat Sarsour with the participation of 25 men and women members of the eight cooperatives. The training was designed to strengthen management capacities of the cooperatives and enable them to effectively conduct in-depth participatory value chain analyses.

The majority of participants indicated that they learned a lot on how cooperatives work. They also voiced interest in additional training on cooperative legislation and marketing. They appreciated the training methodology and the interaction between participants and the resource people. Based on the feedback from the participants, the training materials are being further revised. Once finalized the training materials will be added to the ILO e-learning modules as an open-sourced resource to be used in future agricultural livelihood projects with cooperatives in Jordan and other Arab States.

Participants of the training

In addition, through the training course, a number of follow-up actions were identified towards further strengthening the capacities of the eight cooperatives, including on the governance, the provision of competitive services and the promotion of gender equality. Some of these will be addressed within the framework of the current project.

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My.Coop is a training package and programme on the management of agricultural cooperatives, developed through a partnership of several organizations including the ILO, the FAO, the International Training Centre of the ILO, Agriterra, the Royal Tropical Institute and the Wageningen University and Research Centre. As of 2018, at least 64 countries and 154 organizations from around the world have participated in a My.Coop training of trainers (ToT) or made use of the materials.

For full modules see
our website or the online platform
For more information on the My.Coop adaptation and implementation, see the
guide for potential users and the stock-taking brief from 2012-2017