Effect of Microfinance Interventions on Financial Empowerment of Women a Case of Mombasa County, Kenya

The focus of this study was to know the effect of microfinance interventions on financial empowerment of Women in Mombasa County. Existing studies largely focused on the entreprenership aspests and rural women. However, this study considered a broader aspect by focusing on women who sought microfinance services not only for business but also for household needs. This study reviewed three theories namely; the financial constraint theory, the empowerment theory, joint liability theory and one model namely, Grameen Bank Model. The study used the causal-comparative research design and the focused population was Self Help Groups (SHGs) women groups in Mombasa County. The study used simple random sampling to select from the 877 SHGs women groups in Mombasa County and adopted a small sample size of 275. To collect Primary data questionnaires were administered to group leaders of self-help groups conveniently selected from the stratum during their meetings. SPSS was used to generate descriptive and inferential statistics which were used to come up with conclusions and generilazations regarding the population. The particular descriptive statistics was frequencies, mean scores and standard deviation. The particular inferential statistics were regression and correlation analysis. A multivariate regression model was used to link the independent variables to the dependent variable. The study concluded that microfinance insurance requirements are not transparent as there are hidden terms which are rarely revealed to the customer. Microfinance institutions provide financial trainings frequently on women which help them make prudent financial decisions that are geared towards empowering them. The study recommended that microfinance institutions should develop credit policies geared towards enabling women to access loans easily and with fewer requirements. Microfinance institutions management should motivate women and other social groups to save more. The study recommended that financial trainings offered by microfinance institutions should be highly revised to capture contemporary trends in finance and business. Most importantly MFIs should concentrate more in creating awareness in micro insurance as it is the variable that contributes least on Financial Empowerment. The beneficiaries of this study are other researchers, academic organizations and policy makers. Key Words: Lending, Saving, Micro Insurance, Financial Training services, Financial Empowerment CITATION: Adero, L. A., & Kariuki, G. M. (2020). Effect of microfinance interventions on financial empowerment of women a case of Mombasa County, Kenya. The Strategic Journal of Business & Change Management , 7(4), 572 – 590.