The Role of Cooperatives in Empowering the Rural Women: The case of Shusha Rural Saving and Credit Cooperative Union, GenaBossa, SNNPR. Ethiopia

Abstract

Since women make up the majority of the worlds poor, meeting poverty reduction goals requires addressing women and their socio - economic empowerment. Women empowerment, as a policy approach, uses different mechanisms to empower women; out of which organizing women into cooperatives is attracting the attention of many organizations. Thus a study was conducted to assess the role of rural primary Saving an d Credit Cooperative on women’s Empowerment in GenaBossa, SNNPR.Ethiopia. The methodology used was two stage simple random sampling techniques in which 160 cooperative member women respondents were drawn. In addition, FGDs, key informant interviews and secondary data were also used to collect the necessary information. Data analysis was done by using descriptive statistics such as frequency mean and percentage. The results of the study indicate that there are socio - economic benefits for women participat ing in RASCCOs through providing loan, and training enable the members to perform income generating activities; which help them to increase their income, saving and relatively decision making power. The result shows that participation in cooperative servic es has a positive impact on empowerment of women. This is also an indication , being organized into cooperatives is very important for women to improve their socio - economic condition in rural areas. However, rural problems are multidirectional which are int errelated and linked to each other which were observed that hinder the RUASCCOs on women empowerment. Therefore to empower women the RUSCCOs work in collaboration with different partner organizations that have great stake in the local area.