Empowering Women for Entrepreneurship: The Role of Microfinance

Abstract

Poverty is the greatest curse of mankind. This black-spot in the moon is very closely differentiated. Society denigrates the poor. Governance and policy makers take this as challenge. Economists, managers, and other radical thinkers takes this group as the subject of research .Women are alien to development. More so, in the developing countries. Their socio-economic positions, literacy, information seeking behaviour and general awareness, occupational strength, earnings and allied income possibilities, nutritional and health status, stake in the family and community decisions making process, the extent of rigor in achievement and the sense of pride, wealth and assets build-up for coping against the rainy days and, above all, generating and grooming self-protection - are the issues to ponder over while making any move to care for them. Supports from banks and other financial institutions for growth of micro enterprises (ME) have been encouraging but the quench for funds remains unsaturated. In additions to MEs, small and medium enterprises (SME) suffered from the inadequacy of working capital. Even, the directed funding policy of the government, both at the central and the state level, could not meet the need for the micro-enterprises promoted by women. Major findings confirms the individual potency, self-confidence, mobility, arithmetical skill, widening of interest, inter-caste communication, leadership quality, collective action and market networking getting build up through micro finance- cantered empowerment.