DotCooperation LLC and Forus Digital Cooperative have signed a strategic partnership agreement to support the adoption of trusted .coop digital identities by co-operatives across Africa.
Under the agreement, Forus – a technology and infrastructure group developing connected digital systems for institutions, networks and communities – is appointed DotCooperation’s strategic promotional and implementation partner for Africa.
The two partners say the collaboration combines DotCooperation’s co-operative digital identity ecosystem, .coop, with Forus’s co-operative network, implementation capability and technical support services.
The .coop domain gives eligible co-ops a recognisable digital identity and a dedicated online presence connected to the global co-operative movement. Through the partnership, Focus will help co-ops, federations, apex organisations and co-op networks understand, access and use .coop as part of their digital development.
The partnership “will focus on practical adoption, not digital identity in isolation”, the co-ops say. Activities may include co-operative outreach, awareness campaigns, webinars, conferences, onboarding support, technical assistance, digital-service integration, case studies and promotion through co-operative platforms including WorldMap.coop and Stories.coop
Forus says its approach is to “connect trusted co-operative identity with practical digital participation”.
Depending on the needs of each co-operative and the relevant approvals, this could include member and organisation onboarding, payments, commerce, procurement, service access and connections between co-operative economies.
Forus adds: “The partnership creates a pathway from identity to trust, connection, participation and growth.
“The objective is to help African co-operatives become more visible, easier to discover and better positioned to participate in the digital economy while retaining their own ownership, governance and member relationships.”
Sector-focused co-operative case studies will be used to show how shared digital infrastructure can strengthen real, member-owned economic networks.
Forus also has a strategic collaboration with the World Agriculture Forum (WAF) to support TerraNexus, a co-operative-led agricultural ecosystem designed to connect national apex and tertiary agri co-ops, their primary co-ops and farmer members with markets, finance, technology, services and investment.
WAF contributes its global agricultural network and country councils, while Forus offers co-operative enablement, verified identity, connected workflows and financial rails.
Another Forus project is a pilot with the Unati Co-operative Marketing-cum-Processing Society in Punjab, India. Unati connects rural communities and producers with agriculture, processing, value addition, technology and markets, and uses its co-op structure support women-led enterprise, rural livelihoods and digitally enabled value chains.
Meanwhile, in South Africa Wealth on Wheels (Wow) Connect is a co-operative-led digital transformation initiative developed for the Eastern Cape Transport Tertiary Co-operative (ECTTC), the largest public transport co-operative in Africa and winner of the Fintech Innovation of the Year Award (Africa Tech Festival 2024).
Wow-Connect is an attempt to transform the public transport economy by integrating membership, digital identity, payments, connectivity, mobility, fleet operations, and commercial and financial services into a single digital ecosystem.
Focus says these initiatives form part of its wider strategy to connect co-operative economies through practical, locally governed digital infrastructure.
“The co-operative economy already exists,” it says. “The next step is to connect it.”
