ABSTRACT
Women economic and social empowerment has become very topical in Nigeria’s development since last thirty years or so. The general objective of this research work is to examine the instrumentality of cooperatives for women economic empowerment in Awgu local government Area of Enugu State, among the specific objectives are : To Find out why women join or form co-operative societies; To find out the types of co-operative societies women most often form or join; To determine extent to which these co-operative societies promote the members economically; To identify the problems which confront women co-operatives; Make recommendations based on the findings on how the efficiency of the women co-operative societies can be enhanced. The questioners was used to obtain data from 244 women respondents. The data generated were analyzed using tables, frequencies and percentages, among the major findings were the following: Inadequate access to the land especially when they do not have husband, Inadequate access to credit, wide range of illiteracy among the women, lack of modern technology and over dependent on manual labour.
Sequel to the problems faced by the cooperative and their members. The following main recommendations were made: The women cooperative and their members should be given adequate financial and moral support. The government should provide women with formal and informal education bearing in mind that if women are educated, the nation is educated as well. All traditional and cultural practices which are barriers to women active economic participation should be stopped. More and more women should be registered into viable women co-operatives to empower them through the provision of adequate credit, production inputs, storage, processing and marketing facilities. Finally, the study offers solution by recommending ways through which co-operative as an instrument empowers women.
INTRODUCTION
Co-operative is an autonomous association of person United voluntary to meet their common social and cultural needs and aspirations through owned and democratically controlled enterprises (ICA 1995). Co-operative are based on the value of self help, self responsibility democracy, equally and solidarity. It is a business owned and controlled equally by the people who work there.
Co-operative are dedicated to the values of openness, social responsibility and caring for others such as legal entities have a range of social characteristics, membership is open, meaning that any one who satisfies certain non discriminatory conditions may join.