WOMEN EMPOWERMENT THROUGH GOVERNMENT LOANED ENTREPRENUERSHIP TEAMS (GLETs) IN KENYA

1. WOMEN EMPOWERMENT THROUGH GOVERNMENT LOANED ENTREPRENUERSHIP TEAMS (GLETs) IN KENYA MARY WANJIRU KINOTI (DR), MOSES KIBE KIHIKO & THOMAS COONEY (DR),

2. WOMEN EMPOWERMENT THROUGH GOVERNMENT LOANED ENTREPRENUERSHIP TEAMS (GLETs) IN KENYA Background of study Theoretical foundation of study Abridged literature review Research Methodology Findings Conclusions and recommendations

3. Background of the study • This concept of government loaning women Entrepreneurship teams came about as a result of the post-election violence that unfortunately affected Kenya in the year 2007/2008 .One of the outstanding diagnoses of why Kenyans violence happened was high levels of unemployment and poverty especially among the youth and women. In order to address these problems, the government came up with strategies and program to mitigate future occurrence of similar events. These programs were aimed at economic empowerment of women in entrepreneurship development through Women Enterprise Fund, the Uwezo (a Swahili word for empowerment) Fund, and the 30% access to government procurement opportunities reserved for women.

4. Background of study • WEF is a flagship of Kenya vision 2030 which demonstrate Kenya Government’s commitment to the realization of the 3rd Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on women empowerment and gender equality • The new government in Kenya that came in March 2013 set up a total of six billion shillings ($75 million) to go towards the youth and women empowerment across the country 47 counties. The purpose of the government fund was to empower the youth and women in teams. This study focus itself on Government Loaned Entrepreneurship Teams (GLETs) among Women in Kenya although youth as stated above are also beneficiary of government loans in team through youth fund.

5. Theoretical foundation of study-1

6. Theoretical foundation of study-2

7. Abridged literature review-1 • Entrepreneurship is equated to starting one’s own business, taking advantage of a profit opportunity that presents itself in the economy or a person who is willing to take risks; or a person who, by exploiting market opportunities • Entrepreneurship team is key ingredients for the success of a new venture (Timmons 1999). • Further entrepreneurship scholars are increasingly acknowledging that entrepreneurship is often a collective activity carried out by an Entrepreneurship team . • On the contrary research suggest that an individual entrepreneur is more likely prone to failure than Entrepreneurship teams in new venture creation.

8. Abridged literature review-2 • According to Storey (1994) entrepreneurship teams are predominant in all the countries in East Asia and Latin America, with the exception of Mexico, in this countries majority of the new enterprises are founded by Entrepreneurship teams with complementary functions, skills, and abilities. • On women entrepreneurship, Kelley et al (2012) pinpoint that the rates and profile of women entrepreneurs globally varies markedly globally. For instance in Pakistan, women entrepreneurs represent only 1% of gender’s population, while 40% of women in Zambia are engaged in this activity

9. Abridged literature review-3 • The highest regional female Total Entrepreneurship Activity (TEA) levels is in Sub-Saharan Africa, where27% of the female population on average is engaged in entrepreneurship Latin America/Caribbean economies as well the women TEA is comparatively high levels at (15%). • On the other hand MENA/Mid-Asia region and developed Europe and Asia represent lower female TEA levels at 4% and 5% respectively. A large majority of all microfinance clients worldwide are women, ranging from 58% - 86% depending on the geographical area, and approximately 60% in Africa (Lafourcade et al, 2005).

10. Abridged Lit Review-4 • Women participation in entrepreneurship was in the past predominantly in agriculture. However, with rural-urban migration this has changed with women entrepreneurship involvement in small and medium enterprise becoming increasingly evident. • This can be attributable to socio- economic changes in urban areas altering traditional patterns of gender division of labour. In addition women have also attained formal education which makes them eligible for both modern wage employment and contribution in business enterprise.

11. Research Methodology • The research site was Nairobi City County, one of the forty seven (47) counties in Kenya. The other 46 counties are shown in Table 1.1.The County was chosen because firstly, it is the capital city of Kenya and secondly, it has the highest population of 3,138,369 and finally, it is a cosmopolitan city where all communities reside therefore a good representative all the communities in Kenya. • A cross sectional descriptive survey research design was used for the purpose of this study. The population of the study comprised of seventeen (17) Women Enterprise Fund Officers( WEFOs) in charge of seventeen (17) constituencies of Nairobi County namely; Dagoretti North, Dagoretti South, Embakasi Central, Embakasi East, Embakasi North, Embakasi South, Embakasi West, Kamukunji, Kasarani, Kibra, Langata, Makadara, Mathare, Roysambu, Ruaraka, Starehe and Westlands . A census was conducted due to small number of the population.

12. Sample, Instrument & Analysis of Research • Primary data was collected using interview guides containing mainly open ended questions developed in line with the objectives of the research study, found suitable because it allowed the officers give in-depth information about their experiences with the entrepreneurship teams as well the government of Kenya through Women Enterprise Fund. Therefore the data collected was qualitative in nature. • Interviews which was administered to each and every women Enterprise officer (WEFOs) in the seventeen constituencies in Nairobi chosen as Key Informants to the groups they led • Findings from the data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and were presented using frequency, percentage tables, column charts and pie charts where applicable.

13. Findings -1 • The challenges are categorized into general, member, leadership and business related challenges as follows: • General related challenges • Physically challenged members in the group • Blood related women groups hence one member problems affects the whole group • Group formed on the basis of shared challenge such as women suffering from HIV. In a group like this most or all members may die before loan repayment • Members shifting from one constituency or residential areas to another • Situations where a woman is given a loan and defaults and the family members including the husband is not aware thus bringing conflict to the family unit • High levels of illiteracy among women

14. Findings-2 • Members related challenges • Conflicts in the group/ dishonesty/lack of trust among members • Many members do not know another well • Lack of commitment to the group by members

15. Findings- 3 • Leadership related challenges • Group Officials collect funds from WEF and divide it among themselves without members knowledge • One person mostly the chairlady collects money and uses it for personal issues hence causing the whole group to default in repayment • Poor leadership and decision making • Withdrawing all loan given without leaving some security • Inability to write a constitution

16. Findings- 4 • Business related challenges • Lack of business ventures/ideas among the group members • Poor or no record keeping especially for new groups • Lack of business and management skills • Majority of groups engaging in similar business or lack of differentiation of businesses and this may result to business failure

17. Findings-4 • Lack of premises especially for informal businesses hence women set their businesses in road reserves or on government land which the central or county government demolish as illegal structures resulting to losses and probable business failure and hence loan repayment default. • Lack of enough capital due to the limited finances given to each group or individual The maximum limit of Kshs.500, 000($6250) given a group 10 to 25 members. This amount is insufficient.

18. Findings-5 • Lack of consistent market for their products as well as lack of marketing training on market potential identification, branding, promotion, distribution and professionalism in product development • Low business skills and training on record keeping, calculation of profits and understanding of the market trends • Misuse of funds intended for business. For instance the women may use the money to pay school fees or other business unrelated activities

19. Findings-6 • 5:THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT HAS BEEN VERY CONDUCIVE SINCE THE INCEPTION OF THE COUNTY GOVERNMENT * THE COUNTY GOVERNMENT HAS DONE ENOUGH IN BEING FACILITATIVE THAN HINDERING SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH IN THE COUNTY • It can once again be observed that p-value in the chi-squire test is 0.010 which is less than 0.05. This suggests that there is very strong evidence against the null hypothesis

20. Findings-7 • Loan processing taking long which results to lost business opportunities • Many groups engaged on individual business rather than a common group business as advised by the WEF.

21. Conclusions and recommendations-1 • The success rate of the entrepreneurship teams in terms of loan repayment was very good on average. The challenges faced by the teams were general in nature, member, leadership and business related. • Based on the big number of challenges faced by the groups, the training offered to both the WEFOs and the entrepreneurship teams is not adequate.

22. Conclusions and recommendations-2 • There is also a need for tighter mechanism aimed at reducing or eliminating loan defaulters to ensure more women benefit from the WEF. • It is also critical that WEF monitor the women groups businesses with a view of establishing their successes and challenges as well as regularly carrying out thorough group appraisal as well as rewarding well-performing groups. • On marketing, the researchers recommend that WEF should guide groups in marketing their products as well as train the groups in marketing which is a pre-requisite to any successful business, on market potential identification, branding, promotion, distribution and professionalism in product development as well as facilitate linkages with other institutions which benefit women.

23. Thanks very much