Impact of micro credit on empowerment of women

Abstract

Addressing the inaccessibility of finance to rural poor and to promote their access in income generating activities, various microfinance programs are being conducted in Nepal. The purpose of such program is to emphasize poor and landless women to the small- scale credit to promote their livelihood and to conduct various small scale earning activities by providing them access to credit without collateral. Broadly speaking, objectives of these programs are to raise income and involve women in community development process.

The study analyses the status of women due to impact of micro credit programs. This study has utilized both qualitative and quantitative techniques for data collection. Randomly, to those women who are involving in samuha are selected for study and they are interviewed using structured questionnaire.

It is observed that respondent women had poor social and economic status before joining in micro financing programs but after joining, they have been empowered and their poverty has been reduced to some extent. Therefore institutionalization of such micro credit programs is essential to raise the status of women.