Abstract:
This study assessed the gender perspectives in Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs)
in the Akuapem-North Municipality of the Eastern Region of Ghana. This was based on the
premise that since the formation of these community-based financial services in in 2009, though
females form the majority of the membership, i.e. 70.7%, males who are rather in the minority
have been dominating in the administration of the groups thereby enjoying most of the benefits
at the detriment of the females. The methodology employed purposive, convenience and simple
random sampling techniques to sample 7 VSLAs and 110 members (with 67.3% females and
32.7% males) out of a population 516 members from 15 VSLAs. The demographic
characteristics of the respondents showed that majority of them i.e. 86.4% were in the
productive working age of 18 to 59 years with most of them being Christians and married. The
main findings were that although females accounted for 70.5% of the sample, their
representation on the executives were only 57.1%. Also, whereas the men mostly occupied the
most influential positions of president and secretary, the women were normally holding the
lower treasurer and tellers’ posts. The major cause of these problems was found to be high
female illiteracy and their lack of will to take up leadership positions in the presence of men.
The main recommendations here are to encourage the illiterate women to be educated through
non-formal education, sensitize the women to take up the presidency position of which
education is not a critical requirement, form single-sex VSLAs, and getting all girls educated to
forestall the problem in the future. Also financial literacy and business enterprise development
training are recommended to ensure that women are able to utilize their capital very well for
greater wealth to boost their confidence.
