Analysis of Women’s Empowerment through Microcredit: Case Study of Samurdhi Program in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Does microcredit have the potential to empower women? Many factors facilitate female empowerment through microcredit. The Department of Samurdhi Development in Sri Lanka provides microcredit programs to enhance the business environment of unemployed women. The Samurdhu microcredit program is designed with training facilities, market facilities, loan cycles, group lending, exposure to credit, and business support facilities. This study will determine the factors for women's empowerment through microcredit facilities in Samurdhi banks for self-employment activities. In this study, women's empowerment at the household level through the microcredit facility of Samurai Bank has been taken into account to analyze the problem identified in this research. This paper illustrates the most significant factors of the microcredit facility granted by the Samurdhi community-based banks for empowering women. The method used to select women beneficiaries is a simple random sampling from the lists of loan applicants in the bank based on 13 Grama Niladhari Divisions, Madame divisional secretariat, Puttalam District, Sri Lanka.241 cross-sectional data was gathered by the questionnaire survey in the Madampe divisional secretariat, Puttalam District in Sri Lanka. The data analysis in this paper revealed that training facilities and market access are the two most significant factors, followed by group lending and exposure to credit components to facilitate women’s empowerment in rural areas. Finally, this paper proposed policy recommendations for policymakers to improve their microcredit policies with several different components.