A study on a general comparison and evaluation of cooperatives in Turkey and Afghanistan

Cooperatives are defined as an economic and social activity based on mutual aid, solidarity and cooperation. It is known that cooperatives, which are as old as the history of humanity, are active in many fields, especially in developed countries. Since cooperatives encourage economic freedom, production, entrepreneurship and socialization, it is also accepted as a kind of development indicator. In Turkey, which is a developing country, the history of cooperatives goes back to very old times. It is also known that Turkey has taken new steps in the field of cooperatives in the developing and changing world. It is also very important at this point that Turkey transfers its experience and knowledge of cooperatives, especially to underdeveloped and poor countries. From this point of view, Turkey's relations with Afghanistan, which has rich historical and cultural ties, gradually gain a new dimension. In particular, the refugee problem in recent years has brought Turkey and Afghanistan closer together. In this convergence process, it is expected that the comparison of Turkey's cooperative experience with Afghanistan and the evaluation of the results obtained from this comparison will contribute to the development of Afghanistan and can also improve Turkey-Afghanistan relations. International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and T.C. According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, there are approximately 2.6 million cooperatives in the world and more than one billion members of these cooperatives. 13.82% of the world population is a partner in a cooperative, this rate is 7.88% in Turkey and well below 1% in Afghanistan. It is predicted that the share of cooperatives, whose share in the global economy is around 4%, will increase even more. The Covid 19 pandemic and the food crisis have further increased the importance of cooperatives. From this point of view, in this study, attention was drawn to the importance of cooperatives in overcoming the economic, social and political crisis in Afghanistan. In the study, considering that the historical and cultural ties of Turkey and Afghanistan are close, it has been reached by using various data that Turkey can be a role model in the development of cooperatives in Afghanistan. These data are composed of numerical data related to cooperatives in Turkey, Afghanistan and the world, and by comparing them, new data has been created. In the study, cooperatives between Turkey and Afghanistan were compared in terms of history, process, legislation and administrative structure, and common and different aspects of cooperatives between both countries were determined. With this study, the economic and social problems in Afghanistan were looked at from the perspective of cooperatives and compared with Turkey, it was tried to fill a big gap in scientific studies on this subject. Keywords: Afghanistan, Development, ICA (International Union of Cooperatives), Cooperatives, Turkey.