Does microcredit make any difference on borrowers’ businesses? evidences from a survey of women owned microenterprises in Tanzania
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Date
2014
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Publisher
International Journal of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurship
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to examine whether participation in microcredit has any effect
on the performance of women owned microenterprises in Tanzania. To that end, the article
utilized survey data collected by use of questionnaire from a total 217 borrowers and 183
non-borrowers in three major cities in Tanzania including Arusha, Dar es Salaam and
Mwanza. The study found out that businesses of borrowers were performing significantly
better than those of non-borrowers on total sales revenue and business net worth. Although
mean net profit for borrowers was higher than non-borrowers, the difference was not
statistically significant. The paper concludes that microcredit is a useful tool to alleviate
poverty among women through income generation resulting from their involvement in
microenterprise activities. It further calls for consorted efforts by responsible government
agencies and commercial banks to scale up outreach of microcredit services to women
through, among other initiatives, provision of financial and technical support to member-
based savings and credit associations.
Description
International Journal of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurship
Keywords
Microcredit, Microenterprises, Women, Business performance