Microfinance and Socio-Economic Empowerment of Women: A Case of Opportunity International Savings and Loans Clients
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Date
2011-05-04
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Abstract
Governments, donors and NGOs have over the years initiated and implemented programmes aimed at empowering women economically and socially. Despite these efforts some challenges still remain. Microfinance as tool for women empowerment has become the main subject of many global and regional conferences, seminars and workshops. This study therefore examined the contribution of microfinance to the socio-economic empowerment of women in Ghana by using Opportunity International savings and Loans (OISL) microfinance programme as a case study. The survey method was adopted where questionnaires were administered to beneficiaries of the OISL’s microfinance programme. The findings from the study revealed that access to microfinance has contributed immensely to the economic empowerment of women through improvement in their businesses. Besides, the study shows that access to microfinance has improved the status of women both at the family level and in society as a whole. The study therefore recommends that OISL should endeavour to extend more credit facilities to clients to expand their businesses. Finally, OISL should provide more training programmes to women in order to improve their entrepreneurial skills and help reduce the problems which hinder their access to microfinance.
Description
A Dissertation Submitted to the Institute of Distance Learning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, In Partial Fulfillment of the requirement for Executive Master of Business Administration Degree, May, 2011