By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA– AS Nigeria joins the world to celebrate the United Nations International Day of Co-operatives  2017, with theme, ‘Co-operatives ensure no one is left behind’, women under the auspices of Virtuous Women and Youth Empowerment Initiative, VWYEI, at the weekend demanded more support for cooperative societies in the country.

•Esther Akwo

This was stated by the National Coordinator, VWYEI, Esther Akwo, during the celebration of the day in Abuja, where she pointed out that majority of cooperatives were founded by women and also have the largest number of members.

Akwo said cooperatives have done and continue to do their part in alleviating poverty in the country, therefore have contributed immensely to national development, but unfortunately, most of their activities were not recognised by successive administrations.

According to her cooperatives remain the best approach to diversify the economy, because most of the cooperatives were already engaged in different production of goods and services through business ventures of their members who do not depend on oil revenue before they could function, rather were self reliant and financing to an extent, but lacked major support from the government to be more productive and growing the economy. She said: “It was a reflective celebration of the 2017 International Day of Co-operatives, which cooperative societies in Nigeria also marked. We the women in this country are more in number in most of the cooperative societies, and we have through this platform contributed enormously to the economic growth and development of this country.

“We have used cooperative system to fight poverty to a level, which needed sustenance, but most at times no support from the government, only some non governmental organisations and international development partners who sometimes assist these cooperative societies.

“We want more support for more inclusion and to empower many women and youths as possible because we want to see how rural poverty is aggressively tackled and fought to a standstill, especially in this recession.

“The cooperative societies have the capacity to rescue the economy out of poverty if they receive the need backup via various economic policies and   included in implementation, most Nigerians would be productive and ensure that we grow and develop the economy that would also bring about a paradigm shift from import-dependent economy run on oil revenue to export based economy.”

Meanwhile, she also stated that Virtuous Women and Youth Empowerment Initiative, VWYEI, is ready to collaborate with cooperative societies to build their capacity and also help their members acquire skills on how to be independent and productive.

“The Virtuous Women and Youth Empowerment Initiative, VWYEI, as an organisation that believes in human capacity building through practical ways of skill acquisition is ready to partner with cooperative societies in boosting the economic capacity of their members through empowerment skills that would make them independent and productive”, she said.