Factors Influencing Governance of Women Entrepreneurship Groups in Babati District Council, Tanzania

The study focused on examining factors that influence governance of women entrepreneurship groups in Babati District, Tanzania. The study covered Babati District Council in Manyara Region which consists of 17 wards. The study employed stratified sampling technique to select a sample of 15 out of 34 women entrepreneurship groups and 5 respondents from each group were involved in the study. The study also employed purposive sampling technique to select 3 respondents who were women entrepreneurship group leaders (Chairperson, Treasurer and Secretary), while through convenient sampling the study collected data from 2 other members from each group, which formed a sample size of 75 respondents. To achieve the desired results, self-administered questionnaires was used to collect data. According to the study results, 53.4 % of the respondents disagreed that their groups had access to Tanzania Women Bank. In order to analyse the influence of government policy in enhancing governance of women entrepreneurship groups, the study revealed that 87.4 % of respondents agreed that there is evidence that microfinance policy and gender policy are beneficial to their groups. On the influence of leadership on governance of women entrepreneurship groups, all the respondents agreed that there is good leadership in our group that supports women entrepreneurship. Further, 53.4 % disagreed that their groups had access to Tanzania Women Bank, despite its role of providing sufficient loans to small and medium enterprises especially the ones owned and run by women entrepreneurs, but from the results Tanzania women bank is seen not yet exercise this mission to women entrepreneurship groups in Babati District. Further, 87.4 % of the respondents agreed that microfinance policy and gender policy were beneficial to their groups with emphasis on equity and equal access to financial institutions between women and men. All of the respondents agreed that the existence of good leadership in their groups has supported women entrepreneurship groups to exercise enterprise activities smoothly in their areas. The study also revealed that Tanzania Women Bank is not well spread all over the country particularly in Babati District which led to less provision of financial support to women entrepreneurs, hence the need for government of Tanzania to strengthen TWB to fully exercises its purpose in provision of financial services for its customers, targeting mainly customers with low income comprising of small businesses, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with special focus to empower women economically and socially with high emphasis on women entrepreneurs. One of the mission of SIDO is to provide sophisticated trainings and skills on small and medium entrepreneurs as well as providing loans to them. However, 36 % of the respondents disagreed that SIDO provides different entrepreneurship skills trainings to women entrepreneurship groups in Babati. Following thereof, the government of Tanzania through SIDO should provide training programmes to support and boost women entrepreneurship in Tanzania.