 Early cooperatives were mostly the result of spontaneous efforts by people to help themselves. Before long, however, the value of cooperation and the organisations it produced was noticed by governments and their advisers, and steps were taken to lay down standards for their operation. The first step was the passing of a cooperative law. Such laws are now to be found, carefully amended and adapted over the years, in the vast majority of countries throughout the world. Under these laws cooperatives become legal entities and are able to own property, trade, borrow and lend money. Cooperatives can be important providers of financial services but they have often faced greater crises of financial instability than the formal banking sector usually due to weak supervision. Cooperatives have also been damaged by being used as political instruments or being forced to implement government policies. However, financial stabilisation and institutional development programmes have led to a resurgence of viable credit unions in a number of countries and cooperative organisations have the potential to play a significant role in rural financial markets. | 
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