| dc.description.abstract | In Kenya, women face various challenges in their live endeavours as they endure to attain self
economic empowerment. To address the challenges faced by women in their attempt to access
affordable credit, the Kenya government introduced the women enterprise fund in august 2007.
The fund targeted women across the country and was divided into two segments. One part was
channeled through preselected micro finance institutions and the other through the ministry of
gender in what is currently referred to as constituency women enterprise scheme and
administered by gender officers in various constituencies with the assistance of a divisional
women enterprise fund committee. The fund was initially distributed equally to all constituencies
across the country. However although the National Treasury support the program every year
where additional groups are funded, Kajiado south had remained stuck with the initial number of
group funded at the start of the program for over four years pointing to the existence of a
problem(s) leading to low uptake. The purpose of this study therefore, was to establish factors
influencing implementation of women enterprise fund within Kajiado south constituency. The
study was guided by the following objectives; to determine the influence of institutional capacity
on successful implementation of the women enterprise fund in Kajiado south, assess the
influence of financial literacy of targeted beneficiaries on successful implementation of the
women enterprise fund in Kajiado south, examine the influence of community involvement on
successful implementation of the women enterprise fund in Kajiado south and establish the effect
of social cultural factors on successful implementation of constituency women enterprise fund in
the same area. The researcher applied a descriptive survey research design targeting the twenty
women groups that had been funded through the constituency women enterprise scheme in
Kajiado south. Data was collected using a questionnaire from a randomly selected sample of
forty six beneficiaries from groups that had been funded as at September 2013 and four members
of the divisional women enterprise fund committee. The study found out that successful
implementation of the constituency women enterprise scheme loan in Kajiado south has been
influenced by weak institution capacity, lack of community involvement that has led to low
awareness levels on existence of the fund, low financial literacy of the target beneficiaries and
negative influence by social cultural factors that include patriarchy and cultural norms that
propagate discrimination on allocation of gender roles and access to economic assets. The
researcher further suggests the need for a study to assess the sustainability of the volunteer
approach adopted by the women enterprise fund targeting arid and semi arid areas | en_US |
