The Contribution of Unsecured Loans to Womens’ Socio-economic Empowerment: the Case of Mkopo Mashinani Scheme in Lurambi-kakamega County

Abstract

This was a cross-sectional descriptive study on the contribution of unsecured loans to women’s socio-economic empowerment in Lurambi Kakamega County. The Women’s Empowerment Framework guided the study and used a simple random sampling to select 97 respondents. The quantitative data was collected through the survey method, while the qualitative data was collected via the Focus Group Discussion and Key Informant Interviews. The study used descriptive statistics through the help of SPSS v27 to analyze the quantitative data, while NVivo 12 software was used to analyze the qualitative data. The qualitative data was analyzed thematically, and verbatim quotes were included to capture the exact words used by the source, ensuring precision and accuracy. The findings indicate a significant correlation between the Mkopo Mashinani loan programme and women entrepreneurs’ empowerment socially and economically. The study concludes that unsecured loans have a net effect on women small-scale traders who can revamp and easily invest and diversify their businesses. Also, the Mkopo Mashinani loans can incentivize small start-up businesses. Although the loans have been beneficial to many women, they proved to be too little to promote significant success. This was partially attributed to inadequate training for the women entrepreneurs and a focus on the short-term outcome. Therefore, the study recommends that the implementing agencies of Mkopo Mashinani loans offer women borrowers comprehensive financial education and literacy programs.