GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on impact assessment of cooperative societies on the development of Etinan Local Communities. However, a number of strategies have been adopted for the development of rural communities in the past, but non-seems to tackle rural problems headlong. Critics have attributed this dismal failure to the policy of top-bottom where the rural people were not consulted. This paradigm shift from top-bottom to bottom-top where rural people are given free hand to decide on the direction of their development compelled the researchers to assess the impact of this approach by using cooperative societies as the case study. To do this, literature in cooperatives and rural studies were reviewed; objective possibility and integrated rural development theories were adopted to give direction to the study. However, five research questions were framed, while 250 respondents were selected from 5 viable cooperative societies operation in Etinan local government area. The finding revealed that the operation of cooperative societies has minimal success in term of improved standard of living of the people as their incomes have increased, but they failed in areas of infrastructure, social amenities, adoption of administration, low educational attainment, low income at individual and cooperative levels, absence of extension services, strong informal cooperative based on kinship bond etc. The study noted that expansion of financial base, drawing government attention to area of need, training of officers of cooperative for management skill, auditing of account to make members develop confidence in the societies so as to invest their money, and creating adequate awareness for effective participation in cooperative activities could accelerate the pace of rural development. Key Words: Cooperative Societies, Socio-economic Development