Problems facing women entrepreneurs in Mbulu district, Tanzania

The full potential of the small scale business sector has yet to be tapped due to the existence of a number of constraints in this regard, this paper seeks to address the situation of women entrepreneurs engaged in small scale businesses in Mbulu district. Specifically, the paper examined the types of businesses in which female entrepreneurs engaged in and the problems they were facing in their business activities. A sample size of 120 women conducting small businesses and government officers from local government authority were subjected to structured and semi-structured interviews. In addition, field observation, focus group discussion and documentary review were used to collect the required data.

The study indicated that 92% of women engaged in small businesses because of push factors and only the remaining 8% was due to pull factors. Most of women were engaged in retail trading, business, food vendors, hair dressing and tailoring. The findings revealed problems faced by women entrepreneurs as lack of: capital, credit, business education and skills, problems in marketing and gender discrimination. Others were poor support from the government, long procedures and bureaucratic in getting a trade license and corruptions of the government officers; this indicated that women had to fight harder in the entrepreneurial world to succeed.

The study recommends the business education and skills to be provided to women entrepreneurs, credits to be provided, unnecessary bureaucracy and long procedures to get a trading license to be removed and their roles and contribution to be supported and appreciated by the community.