A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Award of the
Degree of Master of Business Administration – Corporate Management (MBA - CM) of
Mzumbe University. Morogoro, Tanzania
The study assessed the effectiveness of SACCOS in alleviating poverty of indigenous
people in Tanzania. The study base on the case of selected cooperative societies in
Mtwara region
Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies have been playing important roles in the
community for the past ten decades and the roles of these SACCOS increase everyday
due to challenges faced by the financial institutions to provide/cater for all financial
services responsibility to the indigenous people of Tanzania. SACCOS have been playing
party in financial services delivery to make sure community/indigenous are well served.
Poverty is a problem that affects living/well-being of the people particularly in poor
countries. Among the effects of poverty that can be seen in societies include, poor social
services, poor education and diseases. When these are combined together they result into
extreme unbearable poor living conditions that are experienced in the least developed
countries.
Specifically this study first and foremost assessed the strategies employed by cooperative
societies in the effort to alleviate poverty to indigenous people, secondly, examined the
effectiveness of the cooperative societies in alleviating poverty of indigenous people and
also tried to identify challenges facing cooperative societies in implementing strategies
for poverty alleviation of indigenous people.
The study unit of inquiry involved members of the cooperative societies. The sample of
the study constituted 100 members out of 658 members of cooperative societies Simple
random sampling was used to generate the sample where registers for cooperative society
members were used as sampling frame.
Data were collected using questionnaires and interviews. Data were process and analyzed
using Statistical Package for social Science research (SPSS).
The result of the study indicates that microfinance programmes implemented by
SACCOS are good empowering strategy for poverty reduction. Most of the members
responded that micro-lending programme has enabled them to increase their incomes and
this has led to improvements in other aspects of their lives such as provision of better
educational opportunities for their children and health care services. The findings
indicated that through microfinance, self-employment is possible.
Microfinance can be more viable strategy for sustainable poverty alleviation if more is
to be done on to support their existence and functions. Government should arrange
enabling environment for the microfinance program by ensuring political stability, a
stable macro-economic environment and low inflation rates. Governments may provide
tax incentives for large scale financial institutions to deal with the development of
microfinance organizations such as SACCOS so that they can extend their reach to the
needy in the most remote areas; Strengthening microfinance networks by supporting the
agencies that promote collaboration and provide services to microfinance organizations.
Additionally, the government has to play a vital role in helping microfinance
organizations such as SACCOS perform low interest loans directly to cooperatives to
support expansion of their business.