Assessment of the role of microfinance on women empowerment in Nsawam

Abstract

The eradication of poverty among women in developing countries had been a major challenge confronting governments and international organizations. Notwithstanding, the strategies and programmes designed to address the issue of poverty, it is still rampant among women in most developing countries like Ghana. It was against this background that this study sought to assess the role of microfinance on the empowerment of women. The research employed convenience sampling technique to select the sample from the population of women who access credit from rural banks and microfinance institutions in Nsawam. The sample size was 70 clients selected from two (2) rural banks and five (5) microfinance institutions and purposive sampling method was used to select 21workers from the credit departments of the seven (7) microcredit institutions. Primary data on the impact of microfinance on socio-economic wellbeing of respondents and challenges facing microcredit institutions were obtained from the respondents. In the case of analyzing the data obtained from the issuance of questionnaire, the research used Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. The study divulged that, microfinance has positive effect on the socio-economic wellbeing of women in Nsawam. The finding of the study further revealed that, the bottlenecks of microfinance institutions in Nsawam encompasses poor regulatory environment, inadequate capacities on part of client, lack of linkages between formal and informal financial institutions and there is no specific set of criteria developed to categorize beneficiaries. Based on the finding, the study recommended that the Government of Ghana, through Ghana Revenue Authority and Bank of Ghana should grant incentives such as tax exemption and subsidies to microfinance institutions to enable them provide low – priced loans to women in Nsawam.