| dc.description.abstract | The study sought to investigate factors influencing access of microcredit from
microfinance institutions among women small scale traders. The study further sought to
establish the extent to which perception, cultural orientation, cost of credit and collateral
influences access to microcredit from microfinance institutions by women small scale
traders at City Park Hawkers market in Nairobi City County. Despite the government
effort to realize the 3 rd millennium development goal of ensuring gender equality and
women empowerment through various funds like Women Enterprise Fund as one of the
flagship project under the social pillar of Vision 2030, women are still disadvantaged when
it comes to accessing of microcredit. The literature review covered the emergence of
microfinance in Kenya, explaining which institutions have contributed a critical role in
boosting microfinance as an industry in Kenya. The research design that used in this study
was descriptive survey method in which questionnaire was utilized to collect data from a
sample of women small scale traders under the study. The target population of this study
was 368 women small scale traders operating at the City Park Hawkers market in Nairobi
and licensed by the Nairobi City County as at June 2015. A study sample of 192 women
small scale traders drawn from the stalls in the market was selected for the study using the
systematic random sampling. Validity of the instruments was tested by applying content
validity to ensure the instruments represents what they were designed to measure. The
collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics that constituted of frequencies and
percentages. The study may be useful to the government through the Ministries of National
Treasury in their planning and policy development targeting engendering women through
microfinance. It will also provide an opportunity to the MFI to revise their product
features to attract the significant number of women small scale traders not accessing
microcredit and hence ensure that the informal sector is supported in ways that will raise
productivity and distribution,increase jobs,improve household incomes and public
revenues and thus present essential reforms necessary to accelerate economic growth. The
study found out that accessing of credit particularly for starting an enterprise is one of the
major constraints affecting women small scale traders. Provision of soft loans is the major
factor that hinders the women entrepreneurs in running the businesses effectively. Also
lack of tangible collateral security is another major constraint to the women entrepreneurs
in order to have access to any financial aid from the financial institutions who also charge
high interest rates hence repayment and running the business successfully at the same time
becomes difficult. The study recommends that the microfinance institutions should set
some simple process and requirements of accessing the microcredit by the women small
scale businesses and give them at reasonable interest rate to enable them to repay with
ease. | en_US |
