Microfinance Services On Women Entrepreneuship In South Western Uganda: A Case Study Of Kisoro District

ABSTRACT

The study sought to examine the Microfinance services on women entrepreneurship in South

Western Uganda: A case study of Kisoro District. The study objectives were; to assess the

effects of microfinance services on women entrepreneurship in Kisoro District, Uganda, to

investigate the business challenges facing microfinance services on women entrepreneurship

in Kisoro Distric4 Uganda and to examine the variousfinancial strategic practices that micro

finance institutions use to influence women entrepreneurshz~ in Kisoro District; Uganda. The

study used a cross-sectional research design. The qualitative approach was used to collect and

analyze data on the study topic. This design was used because it brings out clearly the

relationshz~ between the two variables. The study was spec~Jlcally non-experimental because

the researcher wanted to describe and make observations ofwhat the real results would befor

purposes ofmaking decisions based on thefacts to improve the situation. The targetpopulation

was 110 and it comprises of 8 offIcials from Microfinance Institutions in Kisoro, 35 Women

Entrepreneurs and 67 Local peasants. The rational was that all the above are stakeholders.

Target population refrrs to the cumulative elements of study from an environment in which

i;~j~rmation is gatheredfrom. The san~ple size ~fthe study consisted cf104 qftarget population

and is determined through purposive and random sampling methods. Data was collectedfrom

primary and secondary sources using questionnaires and interviews. After collecting data, the

researcher organized well-answered questionnaire, data was edited and sorted for the next

stage. The data was presented in tabularform, pie charts and bar graphs with frequencies and

percentages. The study findings revealed that 39(39.8%,) strongly agreed and 21(21.4%,) of

them agreed, and 14.3% of the respondents are neutral, 9(9.2%) disagreed while ‘SaS.3%)

of them strongly disagreed as indicated, Therefore, this means that a sign~flcant number of

respondents generally agreed with the view above that when women get access to financial

services, many are able to invest in their talents by starting or expanding their own businesses.

The study concludes that these are organizations self-selected best practices or lessons learned utilizing criteria that could be positively be shown to promote and sustain good practices in advancing women empowerment. The study recommends that microfinance institutions should consider giving loans without strict conditions such as high guarantees and strong background information. This was so since women cited the above conditions before given loans.