| dc.description.abstract | The study was aimed al determining factors that influence accessibility to
formal credit by the rural households, i.e. farmers, fishermen and the small and
micro entrepreneurs in Kisumu district. So as to establish the empirical
evidence on the link between credit use and poverty alleviation, the study
attempted to make an assessment of the impact of crcdit on income.
Using survey data as well as secondary information this study also reviewed the
operational mechanism of the existing formal and informal credit arrangements
in Kisumu district with the view to assess their performance in serving microenterprise
sector with particular reference to smallholder rural farmers and
fishermen. The study aimed at providing useful information to aid the decision
making process for the enhancement of access to credit by the majority of rural
small-scale producers and entrepreneurs.
In collecting the primary data, questionnaires were administered to an estimated
200 randomly selected rural households in some villages of Kisumu district.
The analysis was done using ST ATA 7 computer software. Cross tabulation,
regressions and t-tcsts were also done, to determine factors that influence an
individual's ability to obtain a loan from formal or in-formal financial
institutions.
Study results show that there was inadequate flow of credit to farming and
fishing sub-sectors in Kisumu. The existing formal banks namely, Kenya
Commercial Bank. National Bank of Kenya, Barclays Bank, Standard
Chartered Bank and Cooperative Bank of Kenya provided a minimal percentage
of credit to the agriculture and micro-enterprise sector.
(iv)
Government institutions and donor-funded development projects extended
piecemeal credit services that were made available to farmers and small
entrepreneurs. Available evidence shows that services rendered by these
sources were inadequate, at best targeted to specific groups and to promotion of
specific technologies. Generally, the performance of most of these micro credit
programmes was not encouraging. Poor loan recovery is also a big constraint to
most of these schemes.
The empirical evidence indicates that age. gender, education, income levels
affect access to credit by fanners and small scale entrepreneurs. The results
suggest that there is need to address key factors that inhibit access to credit by
small farmers and entrepreneurs in order to alleviate poverty in kisumu district | en_US |
