Who We Are
Tanzania's national cooperative umbrella — promoting, serving and coordinating cooperative societies across mainland Tanzania.
Tanzania Federation of Cooperatives (TFC) Limited is the national cooperative umbrella organization that promotes, serves and coordinates the work of cooperative societies in mainland Tanzania. The Federation works to support and improve the policy, economic, legal, technical and institutional environment for all cooperatives from primary to secondary societies.
- Legal recognition in local and international arenas
- Representation at national and international occasions
- Priority access to cooperative events and forums
- Direct links to institutions where TFC is affiliated
- Capacity building through training programmes
- Market linkages for aggregation and collective trade
- Inputs service linkage for bulk procurement
Our Identity
TFC is an autonomous, non-governmental, and non-partisan member-owned body managed according to internationally recognized cooperative principles and values.
Cooperatives are voluntary organizations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination (ICA Statement of Identity, 1995).
Our History
TFC was registered on 8 December 1994 (Registration No. 5503) under the Co-operative Societies Act No. 15, 1991. The founding members comprised five national cooperative apex bodies, two specialized unions and six cooperative unions.
TFC replaced the Co-operative Union of Tanzania (CUT) following the adoption of the new cooperative policy and enactment of the Cooperative Act in 1991, which ended the political association of the cooperative movement as a mass organization and stressed cooperative autonomy and member empowerment.
TFC Membership Composition
Being open and voluntary, TFC currently comprises 70 direct members: 52 Agricultural Cooperative Societies (44 Agricultural Unions and 8 AMCOS), 1 Savings and Credit Cooperatives Union League (SCCULT), 9 SACCOS, 2 Housing Cooperative Societies, 2 Cooperative Banks, 1 Small Industry Cooperative Society and 3 Joint Enterprise Cooperatives.
TFC represents around 4,000 cooperative societies nationwide with approximately 4 million individual members across maize, rice, cashew, coffee, tea, cocoa, tobacco, dairy, sugar cane, cotton, sisal, sesame, sunflower, pulses and financial cooperatives.