The Contribution of Microfinance Interventions on Women Entrepreneurs’ Performance in Gondar District of Ethiopia

Abstract

Recently, empowering women entrepreneurship through microfinance is one of the top ranked issues in Ethiopia taking in to consideration its tremendous contribution to the socio-economic development of their families and country. However, most studies concentrated on outreach and sustainability of microfinance institutions, and only little focus found on the effect of microfinance interventions on women entrepreneurs’ performance in Gondar district of Ethiopia. The objective of this study is, therefore, to assess the contribution of microfinance interventions on women entrepreneurs’ performance. To achieve this objective, the researcher employed a mixed research approach. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used sequentially to select respondents from 20 sub-districts. Both closed ended and open-ended survey questionnaire, and semi-structured interview were used as data collection tools. Ordered logistic regression was used for data analysis. Thus, the result of the study indicates that credit access, saving mobilization and training were found to be statistically significant in contributing for women entrepreneurs’ performance controlling the effect of attitude to risk, business location and family size. These findings lead to a suggestion that preparing infrastructure for easy credit access should be given due attention alongside its related orientations on how to use the credit and saving promotion among women entrepreneurs.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, microfinance intervention, women, Ethiopia, Gondar