Graduate Thesis on: Determinants of Women Economic Empowerment in Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies: The case study Gemechis District West Hararge Zone, Oromia National Regional State

Abstract

Women’s empowerment has different dimensions such as economic, cultural, social and political. This particular study was aimed at investigating the role of cooperatives in achieving the economic and social empowerment of women. Economic empowerment is about the economic independence of women, it is about access and control of productive resources (Desta, 1999 The study was conducted by malka anani,Mada jalala,Dukana ibsa and ifabas west Hararge zone Gemechis Woreda Oromia, Ethiopia with objective to investigate the level of participation, contribution and identify factors that affects the participation based demographic, social, economic and institution variable To address the objective of the stud; quantity, quality and mixed methodologies were used in this study. Qualitative data collected through focus group discussion, observation, and formal discussion with key information experts from the cooperative office. The study used random sampling techniques to select the sample respondent. Descriptive statistics with appropriate statistical tests, Pearson’s product-moment correlation chi-square and other relative tests were used to interpret the data. From the result of descriptive analysis, women's economic empowerment and participation at different levels of management committees and in relationships was very low. The aim of this study was to establish the factors influencing financial performance of savings and credit cooperative societies. Descriptive research design was used in this study. Data was being collected using Interviews/Secondary data sources and questionnaires. Piloting is the study carried out before the actual study as a way of testing the effectiveness of researchers’ data collection instruments and the procedures used. The SACCO showed good operational and financial performance with increasing growth but there was weakness in it product diversity. The data analysis showed that the SACCO should also review their interest rates to ensure that their rates are competitive.