Micro Finance: A Tool to Promote Women's Entrepreneurship Development

It is widely recognized that apart from managing household and bearing children, women bring income with productive activities ranging from traditional work in the fields to working in factories or running small and petty businesses. They have also proven that they can be better entrepreneurs and development managers in any kind of human development activities. Among various measures targeted towards women's entrepreneurship development, provision of micro finance assumes crucial importance. Micro finance programs like the Self Help Group - Bank Linkage Program in India have been increasingly promoted for their positive economic impact and there is strong evidence that they empower rural poor women. Many studies highlight the fact that the credit based SHGs enables the rural women to take up large productive activities and become financially independent. SHGs also increase the self-esteem and the confidence levels of the women. Women are gaining control over the means to make a living. Women are also lifting themselves out of poverty and vulnerability. Women are achieving economic and political empowerment within their homes and their villages. Worldwide, microfinance is not merely a popular way of fighting poverty, it also enhances gender equality. By providing women with access to small loans, it enables women generating an income and initiating their own economic and socio-political empowerment.

“You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women”

- Jawaharlal Nehru