| dc.description.abstract | Women empowerment has become a subject of concern across the globe for the last few
decades and the World Bank recommends that women empowerment should be a key area of
social development programs. Women constitute around fifty percent of the total human
resources in our economy. Several studies indicate that self-help group programmes often in the
form of credit or micro credit schemes and savings have succeeded in changing the lives of
women by economically empowering them which is the main objective of women Self Help
Groups. Thus the development of the women Self Help Groups is important if this objective is to
be achieved. This is evident from the increasing number of Women Self Help Groups in Kenya;
it is in this view that the study examined the factors that influence the development of women
Self Help groups in Kesses constituency, Uasin Gishu County in Kenya. The study also aimed at
establishing specifically the influence of funding, education, training and group bylaws on
development of women Self help groups. The study design used was descriptive in nature and
aimed at explaining the relationships between variables. The target population was1380 self help
group women from 92 WSHGs in Kesses constituency, Uasin Gishu County. Probability
sampling methods was used to get 75 WSHGs and 310 Self Help Group women as the
representative samples for the study. The instrument for data collection was self-designed
questionnaires which were administered to the respondents by the researcher and the research
assistants. Data analysis was done using quantitative techniques, frequency tables were used to
summarize the quantitative data, analyzed using themes reflecting the research objectives. The
findings revealed that group bylaws, funding and training contribute to a great extent to
development of WSHGs as compared to education. The study recommends that WSHGs have
documented rules and regulations which are agreed and followed by all members, WSHGs
should ensure that they conduct training to their members before they borrow loans to ensure
they are able to run successful businesses and before members borrow loans from other
institutions they need to fully establish how they will repay the loans. | en_US |
