Project Abstract

<p> </p><p><em>This study had the objective of assessing the role of gender in cooperative development, analyzing the socio-economic profile of the cooperators on the basis</em></p><p><em>of &nbsp;gender, &nbsp;assessing &nbsp;gender</em></p><p><em>contributions &nbsp;to &nbsp;cooperative</em></p><p><em>development</em></p><p><em>in</em></p><p><em>terms</em></p><p><em>of</em></p><p><em>membership,</em></p><p><em>organizational</em></p><p><em>and</em></p><p><em>leadership &nbsp;structures,</em></p><p><em>examining</em></p><p><em>technical efficiency and factors hindering the implementation of gender</em></p><p><em>sensitive</em></p><p><em>program</em></p><p><em>and</em></p><p><em>activities</em></p><p><em>in Awka &nbsp;North &nbsp;Local Government Area &nbsp;of</em></p><p><em>Anambra</em></p><p><em>State. A field</em></p><p><em>survey</em></p><p><em>was</em></p><p><em>conducted to</em></p><p><em>collect</em></p><p><em>data from one</em></p><p><em>hundred and</em></p><p><em>fifty</em></p><p><em>(150)</em></p><p><em>respondents.</em></p><p><em>The study</em></p><p><em>employed</em></p><p><em>descriptive statistics,</em></p><p><em>stochastic</em></p><p><em>cobb</em></p><p><em>Douglas frontier function as well as ranking method in the analysis of data</em></p><p><em>collected.</em></p><p><em>The &nbsp;result &nbsp;of &nbsp;the study indicates that</em></p><p><em>female &nbsp;cooperators, &nbsp;who</em></p><p><em>are</em></p><p><em>within the</em></p><p><em>active age, are reasonably literate and</em></p><p><em>dominate</em></p><p><em>the leadership</em></p><p><em>role</em></p><p><em>in cooperatives. The result also shows &nbsp;that &nbsp;farm</em></p><p><em>size</em></p><p><em>and</em></p><p><em>fertilizer use lead to</em></p><p><em>increase in technical or productive &nbsp;efficiency</em></p><p><em>among</em></p><p><em>cooperators. The major</em></p><p><em>constraint is gender imbalance &nbsp;or inequality,</em></p><p><em>conflicting interests, low level of</em></p><p><em>participation, wrong timing &nbsp;of meetings, &nbsp;and</em></p><p><em>long &nbsp;distance &nbsp;to meeting &nbsp;venue.</em></p><p><em>The estimation of technical efficiency of the</em></p><p><em>cooperators</em></p><p><em>was estimated using</em></p><p><em>cobb-Douglas functional form of stochastic c frontier model. The coefficients of</em></p><p><em>farm size and fertilizer possess a positive sign, while gender possessed a negative coefficient and highly significant, although it does not confirm with a priori</em></p><p><em>expectation, it shows that female cooperators contribute more to technical or productive efficiency of their enterprises than their male counterparts . Hypothesis was tested using chi-sqared X</em><em>2.</em><em>&nbsp;This paper recommends that cooperatives should address equality issues and make a firm commitment in their mandate to</em></p><p><em>correct imbalances where they exist and to attain equitable and sustainable development with both men and women in decision- making and leadership position.</em></p><p>v</p> <br><p></p>

Project Overview