Economic Implication of Poverty Alleviation Programs on Rural Women in Ondo-State Case Study of Country Women Association of Nigeria

Abstract: The study examined the economic implication of COWAN poverty alleviation programme in rural women. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 100 respondents from Ikare and Ugbe from Akoko North East and Oka and Akungba from Akoko South West. The data collected were analysed with the aid of descriptive statistics and simple regression analysis to examine the socio-economic characteristics of respondents and the efficiency of COWAN micro finance initiative. Results showed that 35 % of respondents have no formal education while 30, 24 and 11 % has primary school, secondary school and above secondary education respectively. The mean age reported was 39 years showing that the respondents were still in their economically active years. Result also showed that loans facilities from COWAN has positive influence on the level of income and the result of the return to scale analysis showed efficient utilization of the loans. It is therefore recommended that COWAN should be encouraged to give greater loans facilities to interested borrowers in the study area