A developing country like Ghana should harness all its human and material resources for her socio-economic and enterprise development. It is imperative that in an economy like Ghana where savings are low and hence capital accumulation is very minimal, micro credit support for entrepreneurs in general and women in particular as pontificated by this study is critical.
This is because women form the majority of the population of Ghana who also lack access to education, and formal credit and being treated as second fiddle to men in the socio-economic, religious and cultural set up. The techniques and methodologies used to collect the data for the research study included personal interviews, questionnaire, field survey and analysis of some official documents and brochures.
Studies have shown that micro credit support to women help to reduce the poverty level of the majority of the population. Asmah (2001) said “the basic cause of the problem facing women is poverty”. She further stated that “statistics show that “women control about 62% of Ghanaian household resources and it is only fair that women are economically empowered for the benefit of the family and the country as a whole”.
The research studied the Sinapi Aba Trust Micro Credit that indicated that a greater part of its credit was geared towards women entrepreneurs especially the urban poor with technical and managerial support to enhance the development and growth of their economic activities. The study revealed that the major set-back in Micro Credit is the high interest rate due to high overhead cost of Micro Credit hence the group credit scheme was most appropriate.
1. Celebioglu, F. (2017), Women Empowerment in terms of Gender Inequality across the Province of Turkey, Eurasian Journal of Business and Economics, Vol. 10, NO. 19, pp. 61-80. http://doi.org/10.17015/eibe.2017.019.04
2. Dink, M. S. & Budic, S. (2016), The Impact of Personal Attitude, Subjective Norm, and Perceived Behavioural Control on Entrepreneurial Intentions of Women, Eurosian Journal of Business and Economics, 9(17), 23-35. http://doi.org/10.17015/eibe.2016.017.02
3. Johnson, S. (2013), From Microfinance to Inclusive Financial Markets: the challenges of Social Regulation. Oxford Development Studies, 41(Sup.1), 535-552.
4. Asuming, P.O, Osei-Agyei, L. G., & Mohammed, J. I (2018), Financial Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recent trends and determinants. Journal of Africa Business, 1-23. http://doi.org/10.1080./15228916.2018.1484209.
5. Ghosly, S. & Vinod, D. (2017), What Constraints Financial Inclusion for Women? Evidence from Indian Microdata, World Development, 92,60-81, http://doi.org.10.1016), worlddev.2016,11.011
6. Shah, F. A. & Mustapha, Z. (2014), Prospects of Women Entrepreneurship: A study of the Women Entrepreneurs of Kashmir Valley, Arth prabandh: A Journal of Economics and Management, 3(1), 103-116
7. Zins, A. & Weill, L. (2016), The Determinants of Financial Inclusion in Africa. Review of Development Finance, 6(1), 46-57. http://doi.org/10.1016), jrdf, 2016.05.001
8. Jane A., Agnes N. & Ondabu I. (2014), The cost of credit accessibility refers to the amount of money the entrepreneurs pay in process of borrowing money from financial institutions. The key indicators of cost in this respect are processing fees, negotiation fees, interest rates, personal insurance, legal fees and travelling expenses that the entrepreneurs meet in the process of acquiring credit.
In-Text Citation: (Kusi, Yussif, & Ismail, 2019)
To Cite this Article: Kusi, A., Yussif, S., & Ismail, A. (2019). Access to Micro Credit by Women Entrepreneurs in Ghana: Sinapi aba Trust- Kumasi in Retrospect. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9(9), 590–613.
Copyright: © 2019 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
