The Role of Cooperatives on Sustainable Economic Development in Rural Area: A case study of Rwanda

Co-operatives are social and economic enterprises that owned and managed democratically by their members for their own benefit and their communities. Irrespective of the type enterprise, the Cooperative business model operates on the same values and principles that confer to their members the triple benefits of ownership, control and utility.

The present research on the Role of Cooperatives on Sustainable Economic Development in Rural Area was conducted taking Rwanda as a case study. The research main purpose was to analyze the role of cooperatives on sustainable rural economic development in Rwanda.

To achieve this objective, the research did 4 main tasks: Analysis of the current status of cooperatives in Rwanda as the achievement of the 4 major periods characterizing the development of cooperatives in Rwanda such as the pre-colonial period, the colonial period, the independence period pre-genocide and the post-genocide period; Analysis of the key elements characterizing the sustainable economic development of a country; Analysis of the impact or role of Rwanda's cooperatives on the achievement of 8 goals of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Those 3 tasks leaded to the fourth which consisted of synthetizing the real role of cooperatives on sustainable economic development in rural area in Rwanda. Here, the research compared the key functions of cooperatives to the themes of a sustainable economic development by providing real examples from Rwanda's cooperatives.

The research used both qualitative and quantitative methods. Data were taken from Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA) database.

The research found the Excellency of Cooperatives on the sustainable economic development of Rwanda in general and in rural area in particular. Therefore, the promotion of cooperatives should be considered as one of the pillars of national and international economic and social development.