Influence of Micro Finance Services on Growth of Women Owned Enterprises in Rwanda. A Case of Rubavu District

Micro finance plays a major role in many gender and development strategies because of its direct relationship to both poverty alleviation and to the empowerment of women. Poverty reduction has become the object of unprecedented attention globally since 1990s. In Kenya and elsewhere, micro finance institutions have been on the rise with micro credits having been portrayed as a way to reach poor people in the development process, meet the UN Millennium Development Goals, and as a new innovative strategy for alleviating poverty. Empirical indications are that the poor can benefit from micro finance from both an economic and social well-being point of-view. Women in the world account for the highest economic growth through the economic activities they engage in. The failure of many of these women, especially those from the rural areas, to exploit fully the credit facilities offered to them by the Micro finance institutions may influence the growth of women owned enterprises. Thus, this study established the effect of interventions provided by microfinance institutions on growth of women owned enterprises in Rubavu Gisenyi. The study was guided by the following objectives: to assess the extent to which access to credit facilities from microfinance institution influence the growth of women owned enterprises; to examine the influence of micro savings from microfinance institutions on growth of women owned enterprises; and to establish the influence of training and advisory services from microfinance institutions on growth of women owned enterprises. The study was explanatory in nature and on a target population of 1200 women enterprises within the region. A sample of 120 women entrepreneurs was selected. Stratified random sampling was employed and data gathered by use of Questionnaires, document analysis and observation. Validity and Reliability of the instruments was tested using the test retest methods. With the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science version 21.0, both descriptive statistics such as the means, modes, standard deviation, variances and inferential. There was a positive effect of access to credit facilities from microfinance institutions to growth of women business enterprises. The access to loan facilities has the highest association with the growth of women business enterprises compare to other variables. There was a positive association between trainings and investment advisory service and microfinance institutions influence growth of women enterprises. However, the association was lower that loan access though it was higher than micro savings. There was an association between micro savings and the growth of women enterprises though it was lower than access to savings and trainings and investment advisory service. The recommendations of the study are that the financial institutions should increase the amount of loans to the women enterprises as the data in this study had shown that the loans allocated were not sufficient. This would improve the women enterprises. The leaders in the women enterprises should be trained and advised more on investment as the results in this study indicated that investment advisory was moderate.