TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION
APPROVAL ii
DEDICATION iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv
CHAPTER ONE 2
INTRODUCTION 2
1. lBackground of the study 2
1.2 Statement of the problem 4
1.3 Purpose of the study 5
1.3.2 Specific objectives 5
1.4 Research questions 6
1.5 scope of the study 6
1.6 Significance of the study 6
1.7 Limitations of the Study 7
CHAPTER TWO 8
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 8
2.0 Introduction 8
2.1 The poverty concept 8
2.3 Microfinance and poverty 9
2.4 To help the poor out of poverty 10
2.5 Methodology of Microfinance 11
CHAPTER THREE 14
METHODOLOGY 14
3.0 Introduction 14
3.1 Research design 14
3.2 Study population 14
3.3 sample size and selection 14
3.4 sources of data and data collection methods 15
3.5 Data processing and analysis 15
CHAPTER FOUR 17
PRESENTATION INTERPRETATION AND DISCUSSION OF THE
FINDINGS 17
4. iDemographic Characteristics of Respondents 17
CHAPTER FIVE 32
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 32
REFERENCES 36
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 BackgroUnd of the study Poverty remains a matter of growing concern in many developing countries of the world. Today, as other continents continue to register sustainable economic growth and development, Africa is not only lagging behind but is trapped in a vicious circle of borrowing and donor dependency syndrome which some critics point out as one of the causes practically sabotaging real development. Africa has perpetually failed to focus its development efforts on the optimum utilisation of the immense natural resources that many countries are endowed with to turn it into wealth to propel their economies and people towards a high level o f economic and sbcial development and as a consequence eliminate pervasive poverty Although Africa is not the poorest continent, it is the only region where poverty is constantly on the increase. As a result, millions of people live each day in abject poverty. Children go without food, their bodies stunted by malnutrition which is wide spread. The comnlission for Africa finds the conditions of the lives of the majority of Africans to be deplorable and an insult to their dignityl. Therefore, there is need to change these conditions in order to make poverty history in Africa. Lufumpa (1999) points out that in the mid 1990s close to 50 percent of Africa’s population of 700 million lived in absolute poverty and the majority of the poor live in rural areas. In both urban and rural areas, women as a group comprise of a high disproportion number of people in absolute poverty