Impact of Cooperative Societies on Poverty Reduction in Ekiti State

The study examined the impact of cooperative societies on poverty reduction in Ekiti State. Specifically the study was designed to examine the effect of cooperative savings and credit schemes on poverty reduction among cooperative societies in Ekiti State, examine the effect of a collective pool of financial resources on poverty reduction among cooperative societies Ekiti State, examine the effect of Educational training programs on poverty reduction among cooperative societies Ekiti State. Theoretically the study critically reviewed The Collective Action Theory. The population for the study is the entire cooperative societies in Ekiti State. Out of the sixteen (16) local government areas in Ekiti State, Ado and Ikere LGAs were selected based on convenience sampling technique. The sample size for this study would be one hundred (100) members of different registered cooperative societies in the selected local government area. In each of the LGA, ten cooperative societies were selected and ten member from each cooperative societies to made up of 100 respondents. The study Adopt both descriptive and inferential statistic tools to analyses the research question and simple linear regression was employed to analyse all the research question. It was discover that cooperative savings and credit schemes has a positive and significant effect on poverty reduction among cooperative societies in Ekiti State. This is indicated by the values of the coefficient and p-value given to be 0.537 and 0.000. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected while the alternative hypothesis is accepted. The size of the coefficient shows that 1% increase in cooperative savings and credit schemes will cause 53.7% increase on poverty reduction among cooperative societies in Ekiti State. Also, it was discovered that collective pooling of financial resources has a positive and significant effect on poverty reduction among cooperative societies in Ekiti State. Based on the findings, it was recommended that Cooperative societies should expand and strengthen their savings and credit schemes by offering more flexible repayment options and increasing loan accessibility.