ABSTRACT
The main aim of this study was to find out the extent the intervention put in place by the Lawra/Nandom District Assembly to reduce poverty and empower women groups socially and economically through the implementation of poverty reduction programme has been achieved. The design for the study was descriptive survey design. The study used questionnaire to obtain data from all beneficiary women groups and interviews from officials. In all, 134 respondents and two interviewees were selected through purposive, proportional and simple random sampling techniques. The data were analyzed with both descriptive and inferential statistics such as chi square analysis.
Findings of the study indicate that though the poverty reduction programme is bedeviled with some challenges like difficulty in recovering the loans on schedule, it has largely achieved the purpose of reducing poverty among women in the District Assembly. Beneficiaries invested their loans in farming, petty trading, brewery of „pito‟ and rice and shea butter processing. Additionally, 56.7% of the women used the loans to engage in petty trading. Concerning the socio-economic development of the women groups, about 65.7% of the women beneficiaries have seen an improvement in their standard of living such as access to health, education, sanitation, and nutrition. Some of the challenges encountered by the women before obtaining the loan were, writing of proposals, high interest rate, loan payment duration and difficulty in opening new bank accounts.
The study concluded that, the intervention put in place by the Lawra/Nandom District Assembly to reduce poverty and to empower women socially and economically has largely been achieved.
The study among other things recommended that government should team up with the local rural banks to negotiate for lower interest rate as well as flexible payment terms to encourage more women to acquire more loans for their businesses.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
The concept of promoting women‟s economic and social empowerment has gained greater attention for some time now yet, progress in promoting gender equality and empowerment of women at country and local levels has been hampered by various constraints.
Although there has been recent focus on developing women‟s entrepreneurship in Africa, much of the focus has been on growth-oriented women‟s businesses, (Dejene, 2008). Women‟s entrepreneurship in micro and small business that are often considered informal, despite concerted efforts of poverty reduction initiatives through increased access to skills training and micro-credit, have not been able to reach the growth potential. The level of poverty which is generally defined as the inability to attain a minimum standard of living, which according to the World Bank (2002), is measured in terms of basic consumption needs or income required for satisfying those needs.
The increased focus on gender and development debate as a means of reducing poverty has been an important development in the last three decades. The global realization that failure to pay closer attention to the differentiated positions of women and men in society in terms of resource allocation, rights, and opportunities in formulating policies and designing projects can have adverse
impact on development outcomes. With this understanding, the consensus around the Beijing Platform for Action was endorsed by 189 governments and leaders of key international institutions at the IV UN International Conference on women in 1995 held in Beijing. The centrality of gender equality as one of the prerequisites for poverty reduction was further recognized as the world leaders agreed to a set of time-bound and measurable goals and targets, now called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for halving poverty and hunger, and achieving gender equality and women‟s empowerment. At the World Summit in 2005, Governments of Africa and other regions and international development organizations, reaffirmed their commitment to gender equality and women‟s empowerment as essential to development, peace and security.
