| dc.description.abstract | Youth unemployment has continued to be a major developmental problem facing Kenya
hence The Women Enterprise Fund (WEF), a Kenya Government Initiative aims to
develop and grow women-owned Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Eight
years since its inception, it is imperative to establish whether the Fund is achieving its
objectives in influencing initiation of the women owned retail enterprises. The study was
guided by four objectives: Examine the influence of training on initiation of women
owned retail enterprises in Saboti Constituency, to examine the influence of legislations
on initiation of women owned retail enterprises in Saboti Constituency, assess the
influence of the loan size on initiation of women owned retail enterprises in Saboti
Constituency and establish the level of education on initiation of women owned retail
enterprises. The study findings gave valuable information to stakeholders involved in
promotion of women owned enterprises, challenges faced will be understood, information
will act as literature review for future academicians as well as the achievement of some of
the key pillars of the vision 2030. The study adopted the entrepreneurial supply theory.
Similarly the study utilized a descriptive survey design. The study sample comprised of
286 women in Self Help Groups in Saboti constituency, the WEF field officers and the
regional credit coordinator. The study also used questionnaires for the women in Self
Help Groups and an in-depth interview (IDIs) for the WEF officers. The instruments
validation exercise was done by the supervisor. Reliability of the instruments was
determined through a pilot study where a Cronbach alpha co-efficient of 0.76 was
obtained for women owned retail enterprises questionnaires. This indicated that the
instruments were reliable. Frequency distributions and percentages were used in the
analysis of quantitative data. For qualitative data, inferences were objectively and
systematically made and used in summarizing of findings. The study established that the
WEF trainings on how to initiate businesses only targeted group officials hence leaving
out other members that could benefit more from such trainings. This impacted negatively
on the other members of the group. Majority of the women owned enterprises got
between Kshs 30,000 and Kshs 40,000 as a loan from WEF which was considered not
enough to initiate a business. It also established that the condition by WEF that all
applications must be subjected to rigorous financial viability assessment by the
Constituency WEF Committee is a major factor as to why women owned enterprises find
it hard to access loans to initiate businesses. The study further established that majority of
the women entrepreneurs had secondary or college level of education while all the men
who had access to the credit for business initiation had secondary, college or tertiary
education. The study therefore concluded that WEF plays a very important role in the
initiation of many of the women owned retail enterprises. The study recommends that
there should be some enhanced and standardized training for all the members who intend
to initiate women owned retail enterprises. The maximum loan amount should be
increased since the amounts of funds allocated to borrowers fall far below the actual
financial business initiation needs. The loans should be remodeled towards more of
individual lending than group lending since at enterprise initiation members in a group
cannot have the same thinking level, attitude and commitment as there are personal
differences. It is hoped that, the findings of this study will assist the government policy
makers to focus more on WEF as a means of promoting initiation of women owned retail
enterprises as means of uplifting the socio-economic status of women in Kenya. | en_US |
