The influence of the Women Enterprise Fund in the development of women enterprises in Matuga Constituency, Kenya

Abstract

This study sought to assess the extent of empowerment of women entrepreneurs through the Women Enterprise Fund in Matuga Constituency of K wale County. It was an assessment of the effectiveness of the Women Enterprise Fund in enabling women to set up enterprises in Matuga Constituency. The purpose of the study was to investigate the contributions made by the Women Enterprise Fund to the development of women entrepreneurs in Matuga Constituency, considering that Matuga is an area that has lagged behind in development over the years, and especially in the economic empowerment of women.

The objectives included: establishing the extent to which the Women Enterprise Fund has helped in creating empowerment opportunities for development of women enterprises in Matuga constituency; enquiring into the adequacy of the loans given to women through the Women Enterprise Fund for development of women enterprises in Matuga Constituency; determining the accessibility of the Women Enterprise Fund loans by the women entrepreneurs for the development of women enterprises in Matuga Constituency; as well as establishing how the Women Enterprise Fund has contributed to capacity building for women entrepreneurs for the development of women enterprises in Matuga Constituency. The literature review included the variables, the dependent variable being development of women enterprises.

The independent variables included: women empowerment, adequacy of loans, accessibility of the loans and capacity building. The moderating variable was government policy. The target population was all the women in Matuga Constituency. Simple random sampling was used to select 10 out of 62 women development projects funded by the Women Enterprise Fund in the constituency. Data was collected by use of guided questionnaires and interviews. The response rate of the instrument was 97.5 percent. The data was analysed using frequencies and percentages. Some of the findings are: The groups' names imply the passion to get out the cycle of poverty by the women. 74.5 percent of the respondents did not have secondary education. All the 62 groups had benefited from the Women Enterprise Fund loans facility.

At least eight types of business activities were started by the women using the WEF facility: selling of fuels, clothes, food kiosks, Retail shops, water vending, green grocery, Poultry, and hiring out of items during events. It was found that the loan form was complicated to fill and application procedure was long and tedious. All respondents indicated that the loans were not adequate. 92.3 percent had never attended any training. The researcher following concluded that Women Enterprise Fund has succeeded in changing the mind set and perceptions of the women, the beneficiaries of the Women Enterprise Fund have very little capacity to fully utilize the loans. Most of the women groups were formed as a result of the WEF initiative and therefore the objective of the fund was achieved. The funds get to the targeted beneficiaries.

Women Enterprise Fund has achieved its objective of making funds available to women in Matuga Constituency as a way of empowering the women in the area to start their own businesses alleviation of hunger as whose businesses are vibrant have been able to fight hunger and lack of food at the domestic level. The researcher recommends that the Women Enterprise Fund considers raising the amount that is given out as loans and for the loan to be effectively utilized, the WEF should scale up training of the recipients of its loans, and tie their loans to attending to literacy classes for women with little or no education.