improved Union services to members RUCU is a registered union under the cooperatives Act NO.20 of 2003 with registration number 5513, registered in 1995. The union is based in Rungwe district in the southern highlands of Tanzania, approximately 50Kms away from the Malawian border. The union offices are based at Tukuyu shopping centre and housed in their own building.Historically the union was formed in 1949 as Rungwe African Union (RAU) when Africans were advised by the colonial government of the day to form their own cooperative to handle their produce. At that time the cooperative was handling products from four value chains; coffee, maize, beans and rice.Due to the perceived advantages of economies of scale, the government advised RAU to merge with other unions in the whole Mbeya province to form Mbeya cooperative union (MBECU). Since RAU was a major stakeholder of the new outfit they were given the general manager’s position. Rungwe on its part just became a branch. More value chains were thus added into the products lists handled by the union.Just like in other parts of the developing world, in 1984, politics set into the cooperative movement. This let to the disintegration of MBECU and formation of Kyela Rungwe cooperative union (KYERUCU). This union lasted for close to 10 years before there was a split in 1995 to form Kyela cooperative union (KYECU) and Rungwe cooperative union (RUCU).RUCU is led by a board of 6 elected board members who can vote during the meetings. However, during sittings, the general manager, the accountant and the district cooperative officer (DCO) joins into the meeting to support the board on advises. The union also currently has an active membership of 20 Agricultural marketing cooperative societies (AMCOS) who in turn boast of a total active membership of about 2000 individual members currently delivering their coffee to the AMCOS who then later deliver them to the union.
The performance of RUCU in this first year of collaboration is not satisfactory. There was a slight increase in coffee collection in the season 2015/16 (27 tons) compared to 20 tons in 2014/15, but the implementation of the project was disappointing: RUCU participated well to Agriterra organized activities but disregarded the activities that they were responsible for: especially the activities impacting on the services to members (provide farm-inputs, joint marketing) and on the loyalty and relationship with members were neglected. The board recognized their lack of supervising the management and the passivity of the latter. Changes in HR have been planned by the board and a closer leadership of the union.

Based on the commitments of the chairman in addressing the past passive RUCU attitude in 2015 with regards to services to members, it was agreed that RUCU will get limited support in 2016 to address the following:- improve the relationship with and services to the members - improve relationship with authorities- analyse cocoa marketing opportunities- improve financial health by restructuring of balance sheet (final land evaluation)

Finalize the professionalization of the basics of the organisation (financial management, governance, business planning and relationship & services to members).