Women in Enterprise-Issues, Problems and Prospects

Abstract

Women entrepreneurs have been facing a lot of problem from the very beginning of their ventures and for these problems a significant number of women cannot start their ventures, although they have willingness and capabilities. Major objectives of this study are to identify constraints facing the women entrepreneurs, to snap a development paradigm for the women entrepreneurs, and to recommend propositions for elevation of their present status. Secondary data have been used in this research. Fear of being rejected, unwillingness to have collaterals from partners, doubts about defending the project, lack of knowledge on different available options of financing scheme, lack of appropriate skills to evaluate the business especially those in the informal sectors, complex procedure in the institutional level etc. are some of the many problems women entrepreneurs have been facing in starting and operating their business. Micro finance has a focus on the women entrepreneurs due to their poor resource endowments and encouraged their savings with creation of employment opportunities. Some recommendations are drawn like the central bank should fix up a target for each bank to provide loan for women owned enterprises and form a monitoring team to monitor the implementation of its circular, separate bank or banks may be established for women entrepreneurs and for the other banks, an obligation may be imposed to maintain a minimum quota for the underprivileged women entrepreneurs, a comprehensive credit policy should be initiated under the direct supervision of the central bank in order to create access of women entrepreneurs to finance and so forth.