| dc.description.abstract | Despite of good financial infrastructure in Kenya, there has been a tendency to side -line women during credit advancement by financial institution.This is much worrying because previous research has shown that women borrowers' scores higher terms of repayment compared to their male counterparts yet they receive lesser amounts during periods of credit. The study was carried out to investigate challenges facing women entrepreneurs in accessing business finance in Kenya with specific focus on women -owned enterprises in Ruiru township,Kiambu county. The study was guided by the following specific objectives: to ascertain extent in which lack of information , lack of collateral, cultural norms and gender -related policies limits the accessibility of business finance by women entrepreneurs in Kenya.The target population of this study was 1,473 women business owners operating enterprises in Ruiru Municipality. The study relied mostly on primary data sources. The study employed a stratified random sampling technique in coming up with sample size of 147 respondents with a pilot study targeting 15 respondents. The study generated both qualitative and quantitative data where quantitative data was analysed using the Statistical Packages for Social Scientists (SPSS Version 17.0) and used both descriptive and inferential statistics. The respondent rate was 82%. The findings indicated that majority of women involved in business was in a married relationship compared with other levels of marital status:single, divorced and widowed. The average age of women entrepreneurs involved in business was found to be between ages of 25-35 years. Most of the respondents were found to be engaged in sole proprietorship business and family business respectively with a monthly average income of below Ksh.50,000. Cultural norms and family responsibilities were also found to reduce the opportunities of women entrepreneurs in accessing business finance. The level of education was also noted to play a great role in influencing the type of entrepreneurial activities women engaged in. Another greater constraint that was revealed by the study was bias adopted by financiers when lending to women entrepreneurs.The study recommends that: policy makers and lending institutions should design women friendly lending packages to encourage more women to join and run successful enterprises.Based on the study, the research has revealed there is no doubt that women entrepreneurs face a lot of challenges while accessing credit . This is similar to report by GoK(2005) in the sessional paper 2. This limits their potential from graduating from small scale to large scale business Siwadi et al (2011). The study also indicates that the average monthly income of these businesses is below Ksh. 50,000. Due to this low income, small enterprises find it harder to get financing from formal lending institutions (OECD,2006). Further the research reveals that the number of women who have graduated with a degree or diploma and are in business is very low. This is in agreement with the sessional paper no.2 (GoK 2005 ) which indicated that the capacity of resources in most institutions is limited compared to demand . Therefore the graduates who leave the institutions are inadequately and inappropriately prepared. Lastly, the study confirmed that lack of collateral especially from formal bank is a greater hindrance tp credit accessibility by women entrepreneurs as noted by the World Bank report (2012) on Women and Law. | en_US |
