Panama and South Africa, 10 September 2026
DotCooperation LLC and FORUS Digital Cooperative have signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement to support the adoption of trusted .coop digital identities by cooperatives across Africa. Under the agreement, FORUS has been appointed by DotCooperation as a key Strategic Promotional and Implementation Partner for Africa. The collaboration combines DotCooperation’s cooperative digital identity ecosystem with FORUS’s cooperative network, implementation capability and technical support services.
A trusted digital home for cooperatives.
The .coop domain gives eligible cooperatives a recognisable digital identity and a dedicated online presence connected to the global cooperative movement. Through the partnership, FORUS will help cooperatives, federations, apex organisations and cooperative networks understand, access and use .coop as part of their digital development.
The partnership will focus on practical adoption, not digital identity in isolation. Activities may include cooperative outreach, awareness campaigns, webinars, conferences, onboarding support, technical assistance, digital-service integration, case studies and promotion through cooperative platforms including WorldMap.coop and Stories.coop.
From identity to participation.
FORUS’s approach is to connect trusted cooperative identity with practical digital participation. Depending on the needs of each cooperative and the relevant approvals, this may include member and organisation onboarding, payments, commerce, procurement, service access and connections between cooperative economies.
The partnership creates a pathway from:
IDENTITY → TRUST → CONNECTION → PARTICIPATION → GROWTH
The objective is to help African cooperatives become more visible, easier to discover and better positioned to participate in the digital economy while retaining their own ownership, governance and member relationships.
Built around real cooperative economies.
FORUS is applying this approach through sector-focused cooperative use cases that show how shared digital infrastructure can strengthen real, member-owned economic networks.
FORUS’s strategic collaboration with the World Agriculture Forum (WAF) supports TerraNexus, a cooperative-led agricultural ecosystem designed to connect national apex and tertiary agricultural cooperatives, their primary cooperatives and farmer members to markets, finance, technology, services and investment. WAF contributes its global agricultural network and Country Councils, while FORUS provides cooperative enablement, verified identity, connected workflows and financial rails. Together, the partners create practical pathways for participation while protecting local identity, governance and member ownership.
FORUS is developing a pilot programme with Unati in India. Based in Punjab, the Unati Cooperative Marketing-cum-Processing Society Ltd. connects rural communities and producers with agriculture, processing, value addition, technology and markets. Unati shows how cooperative structures can support women-led enterprise, rural livelihoods and digitally enabled value chains.
In South Africa, WOW-Connect (Wealth on Wheels) is a cooperative-led digital transformation initiative developed for the Eastern Cape Transport Tertiary Co-operative (ECTTC), the largest public transport cooperative in Africa and winner of the Fintech Innovation of the Year Award at the Africa Tech Festival 2024.
WOW-Connect is transforming the public transport economy by integrating membership, digital identity, payments, connectivity, mobility, fleet operations, and commercial and financial services into a single digital ecosystem.
These initiatives form part of FORUS’s wider strategy to connect cooperative economies through practical, locally governed digital infrastructure.
ABOUT FORUS DIGITAL COOPERATIVE
FORUS Digital Cooperative is a cooperative digital technology ecosystem focused on connecting identity, payments and economic participation. FORUS develops technology, partnerships and implementation approaches designed to help cooperatives and member owned organisations participate in the digital economy.
ABOUT DOTCOOPERATION
DotCooperation LLC supports the digital identity and visibility of the global cooperative movement through the .coop domain and related cooperative identity services. The .coop domain is available to cooperative organisations and enterprises that meet the applicable eligibility requirements.
MEDIA CONTACTS
FORUS Digital Cooperative
Clayton Mott, Marketing
clayton@forus.digital · +27 82 556 3817
forus.coop
DotCooperation
Tom Ivey, Community Development
Manager
tom@identity.coop
identity.coop
World Agriculture Forum
Steve Monty, Senior Director, Farmer
Initiatives
steve@informationcapital.co.za
worldagricultureforum.org
WOW / ECTTC
Dr Nokuthula Mbebe, CEO
nmbebe@ecttc.co.za
wow.forus.digital
Unati Cooperative
Jyoti Saroop, CEO
jsaroop@unati.org
unatibharat.coop
