Microfinancing for Women Economic Empowerment and Development

Abstract

Microfinancing is pleaded as the strategic intervention for uprooting poverty and underdevelopment especially in the developing nations. Women in particular have been targeted as recipients for microfinancing and key actors in the microfinance industry. The growth of microfinance was juxtaposed against its failure to impact on women's empowerment and development; hence, women became over-indebted or turned to be the victim of predatory lenders. This chapter argues that microfinance, despite its financial inclusive agenda, is trapped in the neo-liberal development policies through the commercialisation of loans for profit making by commercial banks. Microfinance has emerged with specific focuses on microenterprises; hence, it lacks prospects for women investing in larger and productive businesses. This chapter therefore is anchored on conceptual and theoretical debates and complexities underpinning microfinance or microcredit in the Global South.