The role of informal financial governance in micro-enterprise continuity: evidence from refugee women entrepreneurs in Uganda

Micro-enterprises operating in displacement settings face persistent working capital instability, where interruptions in liquidity can threaten enterprise continuity. Entrepreneurial finance research has focused largely on access to formal credit, with less attention given to how capital circulates once mobilised. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 39 refugee women entrepreneurs participating in community savings groups in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda, this study examines how collective financial arrangements shape enterprise continuity under conditions of financial exclusion. Reflexive thematic analysis identified four interrelated processes: liquidity compression, collective liquidity governance, cyclical recalibration and conditional stabilisation. Enterprise continuity depended less on the amount of capital available than on the predictability with which capital circulated through regular contributions, cyclical lending and peer-enforced accountability mechanisms. Community savings groups operated not simply as sources of credit but as governance arrangements regulating the timing and sequencing of working capital flows. The study shifts analytical attention from capital access to capital governance and introduces informal financial governance as a mechanism through which the circulation of capital becomes organised under conditions of financial exclusion.