THE ROLE OF COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL COMMUNITIES
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Without reservation, community development is based on the philosophy that people in the local area have rights and responsibilities to choose and make their own decisions concerning development objectives that affect their lives. Moreover, it is asserted that “community development embodies the belief that lasting progress can only be achieved through the development of local understanding, local initiatives, and local self-help, with as much local participation as possible” (MRCS, 2021). Thus, community development projects should be approached from the local people’s perspective because changing the local situation as a way of improving the well-being or conditions of the people is not possible or viable if the community does not regard such change as an improvement.
Gilchrist and Taylor (2011) further highlight that community development represents a broad approach whereby people work together to achieve greater levels of social justice. A group of individuals, and the networks they create, could bring about change in their communities. This kind of change might be shaped by local people’s desires to improve municipal service delivery in the community, for example, or via creating employment opportunities through cooperative initiatives.
On the other hand, these changes can be driven by government or external agents to ensure that residents‟ quality of life is improved; for example, providing funding to small businesses to promote entrepreneurial opportunities in the community.
A cooperative (“coop”) or co-operative (“co-op”) is an autonomous association of persons who voluntarily cooperate for their mutual social, economic, and cultural benefit. Cooperatives include non-profit community organizations and businesses that are owned and managed by the people who use its services (a consumer cooperative) and/or by the people who work there (a worker cooperative) or by the people who live there (a housing cooperative).
Cooperatives are typically based on the cooperative values of “self-help, self-responsibility, democracy and equality, equity and solidarity” and the seven cooperative principles (International Cooperative Alliance, 2012). Voluntary and open membership, Democratic member control, Economic participation by members, Autonomy and independence, Education, training and information, Cooperation among cooperatives and Concern for community.
Rural cooperative is an inner voice of rural individual which everyone has from the beginning of his career. ‘Cooperative’ gives birth to ‘Cooperation’ who has outstanding qualities and devotion in rural area. Cooperative sector should have rural entrepreneurship development programme.
In rural area, there is a good scope for cooperative business development. To get government benefits and concessions one should think to start resources mobilization and resources utilization in rural area through cooperative sector.
The problem of developing the rural areas has received the attention of many experts and researcher as well as the government. This is because I constitute a series of bottleneck to the socio-economic of the country as well as the communities. It is in the light of this, that I have decided to examine how rural areas would be developed with the help of assistance of co-operative societies using Olamaboro local government are as a case study.
THE ROLE OF COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL COMMUNITIES
Rural development according to Diejomoah (2003) is “the process of not only increasing the level of principal income in the rural areas but also the standard of living of the population measured by food and nutrition level, health, education, housing, recreation and security.
Also rural development according to UNO (1960), is “the process by which the effort of the people themselves are united with effort that the government Authorities to improve the economic, social, and cultural condition of the rural communities to integrate those communities in to life of the nation and to enable them contribute to national development.
As it is, the problem faced by rural dwellers in Nigeria today is complex. It is those in the rural areas who have to produce not only enough or their families but also for industries and carbon population they also have to produce cash crops either for processing by local industries or for export. Still they lack the basic necessity of life.
Generally, a cooperative society is a business organization in which a group of individuals with common interests mutually agree to come together with the goal of promoting their economic activities, such as production, distribution or marketing of goods and services, and provision of other welfare benefits to their members (Anyaele 2003).
Matthews-Njoku et al. (2013) view the cooperative as an association of persons, usually of limited means, who voluntarily join together to achieve a common economic end through the formation of a democratically controlled business organization, making equitable contributions to the capital and accepting a fair share of risks and benefits. Over a 100 million jobs have been created by cooperatives around the world (Allahdadi 2011).
The problem of developing the rural area has received the attention of many experts and researchers as well as the government. This is because it constitutes a serious bottleneck to the socio-economic development of the country as well as the communities. It is in the light of this, that I have decided to examine how rural areas would be developed with the help or assistance of co-operative societies using Akwanga local Government as the case study.
Rural development according to Diejomoah (2013) is “The process of not only increasing the level of per capital income in the rural area but also the standard of living of the rural population measured by food and nutrition level, health, education, housing, recreation and security.
Also Rural development according to UNO (1960) is “The process by which the effort of the people themselves are United with effort that of government authorities to improved the economic social and cultural conditions of the rural communities to integrate those community into life of the nation and to enable them contribute meaningful to national development.
Therefore, the research also intends, to investigate the role of cooperative societies towards development of rural communities by identifying the above mentioned phenomenon and to know the prospects and problems encountered by co-operatives so cities in their attempt to develop the rural dwellers.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Perhaps, one of the greatest problem confronting rural development today is the top sided and unbalanced development of their environment and how best to improve the living standard of balance and inequalities in the level of development before the rural and urban areas in Nigeria.
The problem of rural backwardness and under – development has remained unresolved. This is evident in the persistence of agricultural stagnation, hunger, poverty, diseases, unemployment, poor housing, under employment, poor infrastructure facilities.
Most of our rural areas also suffer from inadequacy of social services, high birth rate and death rate, low life expectancy, malnutrition and ignorance, lack of productive, technical and managerial skill to improve production.
Therefore, the research also intends, to investigate the role of cooperative societies towards development of rural communities by identifying the above mentioned phenomenon and to know the prospects and problems encountered by co-operatives so cities in their attempt to develop the rural dwellers.
1.3 THE AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The broad objective of the study is to examine the role of cooperative societies towards development of rural communities .
The specific objectives are as follows:
- To identify or determine whether co-operatives societies have contributed to the development of rural communities areas.
- To find out the financial problem areas affecting the contribution of co-operative societies to the development.
- To determine the impact of the strategies design and adopted by co-operative societies in rural communities development
- Make recommendation on ways towards ensuring greater success of co-operative societies in future.
1.4 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study intends to achieve the following objectives.
- Help in educating the farmers and the entire rural communities dwellers on the importance of co-operative societies.
- Also at the end of the research work, the general public would have gained a lot of knowledge on the importance of co-operative societies.
- The study will also be significant to future researchers on the facts of rural communities areas.
- Also helps to discover, problems of co-operative societies and provide recommendation to the problem identified.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTION
The following questions are to guide the researcher towards finding out the solutions related to the problems, objective and the question of research.
- Do co-operative societies play vital role in the development of rural communities areas?
- Do financial problem hinder the activities of co-operative societies.
- How helpful are government and financial institutions in enhancing the activities/ roles of co-operative societies?
- Do you think co-operative societies provide infrastructures towards the development of rural communities areas?
- Do you consider the training of c-operative personnel important towards enhancing their performance as an instrument of development?
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, co-operative society as a rural development strategy was assessed with 4 indicators: employment generation, business growth, ease of sourcing funds and access to technical information. All of these were used to capture the three contemporary development paradigms: self-help, asset-based, and self-development for transforming rural communities inherent in cooperative.
My Name is Joselyn Nya
A Publisher in Project Boss Team.
I’m a Nigerian
I’m a graduate/Educational Researcher.
Project Boss Team. We are the best for Project materials and project writing services. Email: admin@projectboss.com.ng
