Abstract:
Women economic empowerment is a vital developmental tool in every economy
especially in less developed countries, as it assists to enhance women's economic well-being.
Empirical evidences showed that microfinance institutions were an effective tool in
enhancing women economic empowerment, especially in developing countries. However, the
requirement of collaterals, tiresome procedural formalities and difficult repayment periods
were the major problems to access financial service from formal microfinance institutions in
rural areas besides to decision making problems. So, Village Economic and Social
Associations is an informal microfinance institution which established to solve these credit
access problems of low income people in rural areas. This paper investigated the Role of
Informal Microfinance Institutions in the Economic Empowerment of Women in Gazo
Woreda Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia (case study of Village Economic & Social
Associations. For the study Multi stage sampling technique was utilized while selecting
representative sample women for individual survey. The individual survey data was collected
from a total of 197 sample women (97 VESA participants and 100 none participants) with
structural questionnaire method. The primary data also collected from two FGDs to
triangulate individual with survey data. Then the collected data was analyzed by descriptive
statistics. T-test and Chi-square tests also utilized to describe characteristics of VESA
participants and non-participants. The study revealed that VESA participants more
economically empowered than none VESA participants. So, Village economic and Social
Associations had a significant role in empowering Women economically and as
recommendation it should be scaled up to others.
