Building co-operative education at different steps of the co-operative journey: Lessons from Chile

Throughout the world, different countries have had different levels of co-operative entrepreneurship and importance of co-operatives in their economies. Increasingly, we see that those countries where co-operatives have smaller support ecosystems belong to the Global South. This article focuses on the work of Mapocho, an organization in Chile concerned with developing the co-operative economy through a dual strategy of: (1) informal and formal education for young people and entrepreneurs outside of the co-operative movement and (2) the development, training, and support of existing co-operative and associative businesses and enterprises. I present the 'funnel framework' through which the dual strategy is born and the theory of change from which it was created. As a conclusion, the article proposes lessons and reflections around the framework, as well as recommendations for how to implement co-operative education and development in the Global South.