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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Today, in an era when many people feel powerless to change their lives, cooperatives represent a strong, vibrant, and viable economic alternative. Cooperatives are formed to meet peoples’ mutual needs. They are based on the powerful idea that together, a group of people can achieve goals that none of them could achieve alone. For over 160 years now, cooperatives have been an effective way for people to exert control over their economic livelihoods. They provide a unique tool for achieving one or more economic goals in an increasingly competitive global economy. As governments around the world cut services and withdraw from regulating markets, cooperatives are being considered useful mechanisms to manage risk for members in Agricultural or other similar cooperatives, help salary/wage earners save for the future through a soft-felt monthly contribution that is deducted from source, own what might be difficult for individuals to own by their efforts, strengthen the communities in which they operate through job provision and payment of local taxes. Cooperatives generally provide an economic boost to the community as well. Incidentally, cooperative despite its old age is not very popular in Nigeria. Only recently worker cooperatives started gaining ground among working-class citizens, most of who find it difficult to save part of their salaries/wages for the rainy day. Hitherto, cooperative societies were thought to be associations meant only for farmers, small traders and other very low-income earners. This explains why quite a number of cooperative farmers are found, particularly in southern Nigeria. Against this background, this project examines the role of cooperative societies in economic development with a view to throwing some light on the nature and features of cooperatives, the benefits and the formation and management of cooperative societies. The project investigates the ways in which cooperatives can act as agents towards sustainable community development. The justification of the study precipitates from the fact that although investigating the role of cooperatives on the international scale is not a new phenomenon, In Nigeria, the results of such researches are still scanty and incomprehensive. The project is a descriptive survey, which involves the collection of data for the purpose of describing the role of cooperative societies in economic development. The remainder of the project is organized as follows. Section two gives a background on cooperatives, which serves as the theoretical framework. Section three assesses the role and mechanism of cooperative societies. Section four highlights the steps involved in starting a cooperative. Section five discusses the challenges facing cooperatives and section six summarizes and concludes. The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) in its Statement on the Cooperate Identity, in 1995, defines a cooperative as “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.”

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