Swoboda Research Centre Works with Caribbean Credit Unions to Strengthen Their Governance

Friday 26 January 2024

The World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) and co-hosted by ABCUL, held its annual conference in Glasgow in July, which spawned a new collaboration between the Swoboda Research Centre,  the Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions (CCCU).

The CCCU, based in St Kitts and Nevis, serves 22 national affiliate organisations, representing 230 credit unions throughout the Caribbean.

At the conference, Dr Paul A Jones, Director of Research at Swoboda, delivered a workshop on credit union governance – dealing with questions that are replicated in boardrooms around the world. WOCCU invited General Manager of CCU, Denise Garfield to make the presentation because of his extensive background of research into co-operative governance.

Paul told delegates that boards everywhere must bring clarity to the roles and authority of directors, chairs, and CEOs; establish a positive relationship between the chair and the CEO; and embed board development and education. Their job is to control the credit union and at the same time ensure that it serves its members effectively.

More than 400 delegates attended the workshop, including Denise and many other Caribbean representatives. It provoked a lively debate, with stories shared from credit unions all over the world, concerning the challenges and difficulties in implementing effective governance.

Several weeks and online meetings later, Paul and his fellow Swoboda Director, Nick Money had committed to deliver a programme of ‘train the trainer’ workshops, to enable Caribbean credit unions to adopt a consistent model of best practice for co-operative governance. The system presented by Nick and Paul, and as originally articulated in the 2017 report, is bespoke for the credit union movement, bringing together the diverse elements of governance into a dynamic, integrated, and coherent system, based on a clear set of universal co-operative principles which can be implemented by all credit unions internationally, and has been tried, tested, and published in Romania as well as Britain. The model describes the roles and responsibilities, relationships and behaviours that ensure that a credit union can operate as a sound and well-run business and achieve its goals and strategic objectives.

“It was imperative”, says Denise, “for us at CCCU to engage the Swoboda Research Centre to conduct a series of workshops to train credit union boards of directors in the field of effective corporate governance. This partnership presents an exciting opportunity for collaboration as we encourage and maintain the precedence for good governance within the region.”

Swoboda’s training programme will run over 12 sessions in January, February and March. Unluckily for Paul, they will be held online. “Perhaps the only disappointment is that we can’t meet face to face,” he said. “A winter in the Caribbean would be attractive.”

The training will cover all aspects of board and senior manager-level governance, including the principles of governance, the importance of understanding the respective roles of the board, directors and executives, and the importance of setting goals and strategy, as well as risk oversight and compliance.

“Swoboda is proud to be involved in working with a credit union movement that was the original inspiration for credit unions this side of the Atlantic Ocean,” said Nick Money.