Strategies for addressing barriers to women’s participation in agricultural cooperatives in the post-covid-19 recovery period in Kiambu county.

Abstract

The study focused on strategies to address the barriers for women participation in cooperative societies. The study specifically focused on organizational policy, financial, informational and organizational culture strategies to address barriers to women participation. objectives were to analyze the strategies employed by agricultural cooperatives to address organizational policy barriers to women participation in the post-covid-19 recovery period in Kiambu County, to analyze the strategies employed by agricultural cooperatives to address financial barriers to women participation in the post-covid-19 recovery period in Kiambu County, to evaluate the strategies taken by agricultural cooperatives to address informational barriers to women participation in the post-covid-19 recovery period in Kiambu County and to evaluate the strategies employed by agricultural cooperatives to address institutional culture barriers to women participation in the post-covid-19 recovery period in Kiambu County. The research was anchored on people-centered development theory and social capital theory. The study employed mixed method research design. It targeted 45 registered agricultural cooperative societies in Kiambu County with 114,267 members. A two-stage sampling technique was employed in the study. In the first stage purposive sampling was used to select agricultural cooperative societies and in the second stage simple random sampling was used to select the membership from the cooperative societies selected in the first stage. A sample size of 398 female agricultural cooperative society members was selected for the study. Data was collected through focus group discussions, questionnaires and Key informant interviews. Questionnaires were administered by the researcher to a selection of cooperative members while KII was administered to board of management, supervisory committee members and FGDs was administered to cooperative CEO, Chair board of management and chair supervisory committee. A pilot study was conducted to improve the reliability of the data collection instrument. Cronbach alpha of 0.769 was obtained signifying that the instrument was reliable. Supervisors and departmental experts assisted in checking content validity of the instruments. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Qualitative data was analyzed by thematic analysis The study found that organizational policies strategies had a positive correlation (p=0.000, r=0.331) therefore rejecting null hypothesis. Informational policies strategies had positive significant relationship (p =0.000, r =0.226) rejecting null hypothesis and organizational culture had a positive correlation (p=000, r =0.309). However, financial strategies had a negative insignificant relationship with women participation, (p=0.305, r= -0.061) leading to accepting null hypothesis. Study findings will be beneficial to Agricultural Co-operative societies, researchers and academicians, government and policy makers. The study's finding suggests that education levels, there is need for members to access audited accounts also to advertise in vernacular at the same time at social gathering. Women should be encouraged to participate in leadership roles and unfavorable institutional culture are key factors that limit the participation of women. The study recommended adequate training for women, provision of appropriate environment and prompt provision of information to members by use bulk short messages option and provision of adequate notice for meetings.