CONTRIBUTION OF UMURENGE SACCOs ON FINANCIAL INCLUSION OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN RWANDA – A CASE EVIDENCE FROM NYAMASHEKE DISTRICT, RWANDA

Abstract

The study titled “Contribution of Umurenge SACCOs on financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs in Rwanda - A case evidence from Nyamasheke District” was about assessing the impact of Umurenge SACCOs as microfinances on the financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs in the area under study. The study was guided by three objectives, firstly to determine the contribution of Umurenge SACCOs on the financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs in Rwanda, second to assess the main factors influencing the financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs in Nyamasheke District and third to test whether there is a significant difference in means of women entrepreneurs’ income before and after joining the financial services delivered to them by Umurenge SACCOs. In this regard, the Multinomial Logistic Regression model was performed using a maximum likelihood estimation method on the data set collected to find the parameter estimates of the model describing the relationship between the explanatory and the outcome variables and determine the significance of the predictor variables that contribute significantly to the financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs in the area under study. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect data from 395 respondents. Data were collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS-23. In this analysis, the results revealed that on the total of eleven independent variables that we thought to contribute to the outcome variable, the explanatory variables such as age group, income, living place/location, political factor and payment of social security/type of the job of the respondents to whom the study was conducted; were dropped from the training set of explanatory variables that contribute significantly to the financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs in Nyamasheke District, Rwanda. In the model selection that overall fits well the data, the explanatory variables that contributed significantly to the outcome variable governing the study were obtained to be were education status, formal accounts, formal savings, formal credits, attractiveness of the financial products and type of job that the respondents under study possess. The parameters estimate of the selected model revealed that the predictor variables that best predicted the probability of increasing the financial inclusion status of women entrepreneurs in the area under study were education level of respondents, formal credits, formal savings and attractiveness of the financial products that Umurenge SACCOs possessed. The study also found that there was a significant difference in means of women entrepreneurs’ income before and after joining the financial services delivered by Umurenge SACCOs and finally recommended that the microfinance institutions should strengthen the policies governing the formal savings, formal credits and financial products which are attractive towards the financial performance of entrepreneurs.  Article visualizations: