IMPACT OF COOPERATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP ON POVERTY REDUCTION IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

1Sunday Joseph Adedayo 2Yusuf Ismaila Mustapha (Ph.D.) 3Issa Abdulraheem (Ph.D.)

Abstract

This study assessed the impact of cooperative entrepreneurship on poverty reduction among
members in North- Central Zone, Nigeria. The study was premised on two key concepts cooperative
entrepreneurship and poverty reduction. It adopted a mixed method approach of qualitative and
quantitative techniques in order to carry out an in-depth analysis of the data. Data were obtained
from primary source 1096 copies of structured questionnaires were administered on respondents,
and only 828 copies of questionnaire were validly returned. In line with research objectives, multiple
regression and thematic (Nvivo 12) analyses were used which brought out one themes and three sub
themes to compliment the quantitative analysis. The study found out that have the responsibility of
serving members and also that there is synergy between cooperative societies and their members,
and all explanatory variables have significant impact on poverty reduction among cooperative
members. This portends that cooperative entrepreneurship has significant relationship on socioeconomic
empowerment of members. The study revealed that cooperative empowerment through
poverty reduction is significantly affected by cooperative entrepreneurship to the tune of 48.8%
signifying that a variation in the dependent variable was explained by cooperative entrepreneurship.
The thematic analysis revealed great influence of cooperative entrepreneurship through financial
protection of members, large scale production and equitable resource sharing among members in
aids of poverty reduction. This would enable members to generate funds for themselves by
themselves through savings, share capital and other investment. It is therefore recommended that
the proprietors and managers of cooperative should give adequate governance a priority by keying
to all the functions of management