Does Participation In Cooperatives Empower Women Entrepreneurs Economically? A Case Study Of Savings And Credit Cooperative Societies In Mvomero District, Tanzania

ABSTRACT

Cooperatives have been identified as powerful vehicles of economic, social and political empowerment for women; especially those taking part in entrepreneurial activities, although it seems majority still live in absolute poverty. This study set out to investigate whether participation in cooperatives especially, Saving and Credit Cooperative Societies empower women entrepreneurs. The study has used Mvomero District as a case study. Specifically, the study focused on examining the level of participation in cooperatives among women entrepreneurs, to measure the altitude of women toward empowerment through activities and services provided by SACCOS, assessing the services provided by SACCOS and comparing economic empowerment in terms of the income level and assets owned by women entrepreneurs before and after being members of the SACCOS.A cross-sectional design to obtain data was used, where a total of eighty women entrepreneurs were interviewed, guided by focus group discussions with SACCOS women members for over two years and a checklist for stakeholders including SACCOS leaders and Cooperative officer of Mvomero District. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The main study findings show that there is low level of women participation in leadership as they only provide ideas when invited to do so which does not guarantee that those ideas will be taken aboard. Women agreed that SACCOS has positively changed their lives as now they have power of owning, use, purchase assets and income but skeptical about ability to talk in the public and transfer of assets. Services provided by SACCOS have brought positive changes in their entrepreneurial activities. Substantiate by the fact that the SACCOS in Mvomero did not provide adequate services (both material and non-material) to assist the unemployed women entrepreneurs. Generally, participation in SACCOS provided economic gain among women entrepreneurs as there was a rise in income, however only

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limited training in skills and knowledge like entrepreneurship skills, business management and leadership skills were provided. The study recommended that more knowledge should be provided to women who are entrepreneurs and unemployed. The knowledge provided will improve their way of doing business and hence will run business in a way that more profit will be generated.