Microfinance: An Emerging Tool for Women's Economic Empowerment

Abstract

This chapter aims to provide a review of women's empowerment indicator in Arab countries. It estimates the determinants of women's economic empowerment in Arab countries to conclude some insights related to the effect of access to finance on empowering women. Moreover, the chapter aims to assess MFIs performance in supporting women's empowerment, based on actual data during the period 2008–2016 for selected Arab countries. Results show that women access to finance indicator is not sufficient to give clear evaluation for the role of MFIs in Arab Countries in empowering women. This issue requires many efforts from various parties from micro to macro players in the economy. In addition, the analysis of percentage of female borrowers and their share of gross loan portfolio concludes that performance in terms of empowering women through MFIs seems to be effective for some Arab countries while poor for others.

Citation

Khalaf, L.S. and Saqfalhait, N.I. (2020), "Microfinance: An Emerging Tool for Women's Economic Empowerment", Ratten, V. (Ed.) Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 37-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83909-285-520201003