Women Empowerment through Cooperatives in Rwanda: Case studies of Nyaruguru and Huye Districts

Rwanda is a small landlocked country located in the eastern-centre of Africa. The country faced a world worse tragedy of humankind massacres (genocide of Tutsi of 1994) which had affected all sectors of livelihoods from primary to tertiary lifestyle and a lot of family identities have been destroyed. To support women empowerment, the government of Rwanda mobilized women to join cooperatives. Within cooperatives, they could unite their strength to do a big project that generates more income. Unfortunately, membership of cooperatives organizations is still dominated by men. As a result, this study attempts to understand the extent women considered cooperatives to be a viable empowerment tool and the challenges they experience within the cooperatives. The findings show that most of the women agree cooperatives have contributed a lot in a number of ways in empowering them and given them some sort of autonomy. This has been seen in the women having access to productive resources and materials as well as loans from the cooperative with low interest rates and a flexible repayment plan. In particular, cooperative is more attractive to the women due to the principle of cooperative that prioritized the wellbeing of members over capital. Regardless of the positive values and principles of the cooperative organizations that fascinated the vast majority of the women, challenges such as lack of capital, market access, and management in terms of leadership among others are visible challenges that the women encounter