| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of Micro Finance services on the growth of
Women entrepreneurs in River Oli Division Arua Municipality. The study was guided by the following objectives: to assess the influence of micro-credit on the growth of women entrepreneurs; to examine the effect of financial literacy on the growth of women entrepreneurs and to establish the influence of capacity building on the growth of women entrepreneurs.
Despite improved access to microfinance services like loans, financial training and capacity building among others overtime, women in River Oli Division have continued to suffer financial challenges and retarded growth in their businesses. The women have remained in the vicious circle of poverty characterized by low standards of living, high income inequality, domestic violence and high crime rates. The entrepreneurs have also registered low rate of return on capital employed, low net profit margin and have kept a small capital size and some of them fail to run their daily operations because they do not have the capacity to maintain adequate liquidity levels.
A total of 215 women entrepreneurs were targeted and the desired sample size of 184 respondents was identified using the Morgan and Krejcie Table for Determining Sample Sizes. Statistical
Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) was used to code and enter data for analysis. The study adopted both the qualitative and quantitative analysis in order to achieve the objective of the study. The findings revealed that, Microfinance institutions provide services like extension of loans, investment advice, savings, and training on business management, monitoring and even banking services. The findings further disclosed that, access to micro-credit and other services offered by MFls were of great benefit to women since they were able to start-up businesses and take care of their families due to accessibility to these services. This justifies the need for microfinance services in the economic development of women and their communities despite the fact that, challenges like high interest rates, short repayment period and lack of security coupled with socio-cultural were sighted when accessing loans. It can be concluded that, MFls services positively influences the business growth of women entrepreneurs in River Oli division by 16% while 84% was influenced by socio-cultural factors like norms and values that negatively affect women in a society. It is therefore recommended that, government to reduce interest rates on loans extended to MFls and regulations be enforced to ensure that MFls operate within the stipulated rates set by the government, MFis should increase on the loan amount extended to women, need by the MFls to extend loan reimbursement period, substitute collateral security by guaranteeing and support training in various fields of entrepreneurship in order to acquire entrepreneurial and technical skills. | en_US |
