ABSTRACT

This research examined women led self help groups and Microfinance delivery in Ikwuano Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were: to examine the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents with respect to access microfinance, ascertain the amount of savings and credits demanded by respondents, determine the factors affecting the amount of credit accessed by the respondents from women self help groups (SHG), ident5' the problems encountered by women self-help groups in Micro financing of farms In the study area. Purposive and multi-stage random sampling technique was used to - select 80 respondents. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and OLS multiple regression analysis. The result of the socio-economic characteristics of women led self-help group revealed that a good proportion (35%) respondent were within the age range of 31 and 40 years. Also majority (73.33%) of the respondents were married while a good proportion (53.33%) often had primary school education with a mean household size of 4.03 members. The result also revealed that the mean numbers of years of membership in women self help group was 6.43 years and a good proportion (30%) had amount income of between N93,400 and A67,916.67 respectively. The result of the mu1tip1e regression analysis showed that the volume of credit accessed from women self help group was influenced by household size, years of borrowing experience, annual cash contribution and interest amount. The R2and F-ratio values were 0.7999 and 22.21 respectively.