MICRO CREDIT AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN THE JIRAPA DISTRICT OF THE UPPER WEST REGION OF GHANA

Abstract

The study employed a cross sectional as its study design with a population of 50 beneficiaries of MFIs and 3 managers who were sampled using probability and non-probability samples such as the purposive and the simple random samplings. The data was collected with the questionnaire and the interview guides and the data analysed using frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviation and the chi-square. The results revealed that microfinance institutions were into savings, insurance, mobile banking, supported agriculture with low interests. In addition, there was easiness in accessing loan and clients needed to form groups to access loan facility. Moreover, improvement in agriculture had a mean of 4.24 with standard deviation of 1.001 implying that micro credit has positively contributed to agriculture. Challenges faced by MFIs were misappropriation of loans, legal framework, and inability of clients to pay back their loans. The study recommended that, MFIs should increase their loan size so that there is a greater multiplier effect to clients, develop a component that supports medical expenses of beneficiaries, have individual lending policies that provides emergency credit to members and finally there should be a reformed legal framework by the government to enable the MFIs to make profit. This will help attract many investors to establish MFIs in the district to help farmers