Effective empowerment of persons has always been essential to the cooperative thoughts.rnPoor individuals who have joined cooperative groups can endow themselves with bellerrnsocio-economic power they need ConSidering this situation, this study has made a goodrneffort to assess the role of Saving and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) in upholding thernempowerment of the rural poor, taking members of Kalla Tembien Woreda SACCO in focus.rnThe methodology of this study is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodsrnbased on the data collected ji-om primary and secondary sources. Data were collected ji'omrn110 respondents following simple random sampling method In order to strengthen thernhousehold survey, FGDs and key informant interviews were conducted. Besides therndescriptive statistics, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test (WSRT) was employed to look at thernsocia-economic benefits derived by members afterjoining the SACCOs,rnAccordingly, the WSRT result sholVs that the average monthly income, consumption andrneducation expenditure, and total amount of monthly savings are significantly improvedrnafter joining the SACCOs. Besides, good improvements were observed in respondent'srnparticipation, respondents' exposure to mass media, members contact with DA 's andrncooperative offiCials, re,lpondent 's living standard and occupation.rnTo identifY the major problems of the cooperatives, FGDs and interviews were conductedrnand the results have shown that lack of skilled and educated man power, extremerndependence on external jill1ds, need of immediate dividend payment, poor saving habits,rnloan insufficiency, insuffiCient training and education, and firm competition Ji'omrnmicrojinance institutions are among the main problems of SACCOs identified in the studyrnareas.rnFinally, the study concludes that members' income, savings, credit and participation havernthe possibility improving members' empowerment. Therefore, valuable and sl/ccessjidrnscheme or initiative should be undertaken by government, NGO 's and other stakeholders to realize members J socia-economic empowermenllhrough saving and credif cooperatives