Cooperative Society as a Tool for Rural Development: A Study of Bomadi Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria

Abstract

This work investigates cooperative society as a tool for rural development in Delta State: A study of Bomadi L.G.A. Cooperative societies serve as an effective community development vehicle, by their nature they build economic self-reliance and civil society. The benefits of cooperative organizations accrue to the larger society because they create local jobs, re-invest locally, and emphasis on education and skills that raises local management capacity, reduce migration and concentration of capital. This study employs the Theory of Democracy because the principal objective of this theory is to make cooperative society an easy and profitable organization in which the aims and objectives of rural dwellers are achieved. The descriptive design approach was used because it has the advantage of producing good amount of responses from a wide range of people. The Taro Yamen (1967) formula was used to derive a sample size of 50 respondents for the study. The results from the study shows that cooperative societies have served as a self-help rural development model that used members owned and members’ controlled human capital, social capital and financial capital. The study concludes that cooperative societies play an important role in rural communities and forming an integral part of the business model for rural development. Their formation and management processes encourage democratic decision-making, economic advancement, leadership development and education. The study recommends that government and other development agencies should encourage the concept of cooperatives in rural areas and provide access to technical resource.