Book excerpt: The book outlines how cooperatives can be used as a tool for development and reconciliation in post-conflict contexts. This book also examines the successes and challenges for emerging and existing cooperatives in Africa, while delivering both practical lessons and insights into the theory. It presents completely new materials on the cooperative movement, against a backdrop of increasing global recognition of the roles of cooperatives and collective action in socio-economic development. Readers are invited to consider how, as an economic model that seeks to advance member collective interests, cooperatives are invaluable tools for human, economic and social development. Social and human geographers find this a remarkably impactful contribution to the literature surrounding cooperatives in Africa and cooperative theory in general. Policy experts and students also find the research informative and insightful.