Microfinance and Women Empowerment: A case study of Women’s Perceptions

The study has focused on women’s perceptions on microfinance and women’s empowerment. It reinforces the need for substantial and inclusive participation of women in empowerment programmes; it has also focussed on underlying and systemic and structural factors adversely affecting women’s participation in microfinance programmes.  The study focussed on women’s perceptions on strength of Microfinance lending service, and the potential impact of   Microfinance lending schemes. A conceptual framework that consists of social the development approach and empowerment theory was adopted with a view to critically examining social factors affecting development and the need to take a multidimensional aspect of empowerment. Eight participants were chosen using purposive sampling techniques and 1 key informant from Thrive Microfinance. Interviews were used to collect data from women that take part in the microfinance and lending schemes. Findings from the study highlight that there is general mistrust on savings, business training was perceived as burdensome and there was the perception that they offer high interest loans in their lending services. Women were expecting loans with low interest rates, flexible payment arrangements and that they preferred financial skills to manage the loans. From the findings, it was also reflected that Thrive Microfinance had potential impact of reducing domestic violence, increasing business growth and enhancing personal empowerment. However, women recommended group lending, provision of loans in forex, provision of input services to farmers and voluntary business training as ways to improve the work of Thrive Microfinance and also improving women empowerment.