Pretoria — Business and cooperatives in the developed world should help the advancement and development of those in the developing world, says Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

"The realities of unemployment and lack of skills facing our country dictate that we reaffirm cooperatives as one of the viable instruments to fight joblessness and generate lasting income for our people.

"But we have to make sure that cooperatives generate true economic value that can pull people out of poverty," Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka said.

The deputy president was speaking at the International Cooperatives Day celebrations hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry in Pretoria on Saturday.

She said there is a need for cooperatives to counter against the culture of entitlement and on hand outs on their part and link enterprise development with savings.

Cooperatives, she said, must play a role through savings of their profit to ensure continuity and sustainability.

"In a country like South Africa the first economy cannot prosper and democracy cannot survive if there are no linkages between the first and the second economy.

"We need to move towards implementation of the conference resolutions of creating a united and structured sector that is tangibly exposed to various opportunities such as funding, marketing and procurement.

"There is an urgency to do this as our women, youth and disabled people cannot wait any longer to become active participants in the process of economic growth," she said.

Cooperatives, she said, play a central role in socio-economic development, particularly in alleviating poverty, generating income for the needy and the promotion of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment.

"However, we also need to acknowledge that it is a tough journey for rural women-owned cooperatives to triumph without the necessary support because their success depends on the availability of finance, access to markets as well as institutional and technical capacity building," she said.