Influence of Awareness of Kenya Women Finance Trust (KWFT) Services on Socio-Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs in Kenya
Abstract
There has been a lot of mushrooming of SMEs, particularly in the rural parts of Kenya.
The Small scale and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute immensely to the women’s
socio-economic empowerment and hence the growth of most of the world economies. To
drive this affirmative action agenda, KWFT funds the SMEs inclined to women groups.
However, the economic impact of this on women is still very low. Most women are still
poorer than their men counterparts. It was therefore necessary to investigate the influence
of awareness of KWFT services on socio-economic empowerment of women
entrepreneurs in Kenya. The study objective was to examine the influence of the level of
awareness of women on KWFT services on socio-economic empowerment of women
entrepreneurs in Kenya. The outcome of the study would be significant since it would be
a means to empower women entrepreneurs by enhancing awareness on Services rendered
by KWFT. Questionnaires were used to collect data from 60 women entrepreneurs while
interview schedule was used to obtain information from five KWFT staff. Simple random
sampling was used to select the 60 women respondents and purposive sampling was used
to select the five KWFT respondents. The result from the pilot study was used to validate
the instruments and to enhance the appropriate reliability coefficient. Descriptive and
inferential statistical analysis of quantitative data was done using correlation and multiple
regressions. The findings were then presented in tables. The collected qualitative data
were analyzed by content analysis into the themes (patterns) that emerged from the study.
Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation was computed at p≤0.05 level of significance to
show the relationship between the variables. Results indicated that majority of the
women entrepreneurs (97 percent) were members of registered self- help groups. The
study findings revealed a high positive correlation (r =.96) between level of awareness of
women entrepreneurs about KWFT services (r = .243) on socio-economic empowerment
of women. All the two variables added statistically significant to the prediction, p < .05.
The research study concluded that, women who were aware of the services of KWFT
were more likely to utilize them for socio-economic empowerment.
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