Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, 2016. / The primary aim of the microfinance initiative is to eradicate poverty especially in developing countries. This is possible through the provision of micro-loans, microsavings and insurance to previously disadvantaged communities. Entrepreneurship is the role that individuals undertake to create, an organization, product from an idea to implementation. With high unemployment and poverty levels, Swaziland is engaging the Microfinance Institutions and entrepreneurship to help drive employment, and poverty alleviation. The study assessed several issues: Does microfinance contribute to Improvements in the economic welfare of borrowers’ households, enterprise growth, diversification or stability? Do entrepreneur development programs; like training workshops have an impact on participant’s attitude and behavior in conducting entrepreneurship activities. Is there a relationship between microfinance institution growth and entrepreneurship development? Results indicated that microfinance institutions were still sorely focusing on providing credit and credit facilities, which meant that it had positive effects on capital assets but not the overall welfare of entrepreneurs. The behaviors that programs influenced were also in relation to credit, and not other aspects of entrepreneurship like innovation and technology. This meant that there’s a gap in the effect of microfinance institutions on entrepreneurship growth as indicated chisquare was significant at 9.43 indicating no effect on the sampled population. Therefore it is important that Microfinance institutions focus on the primary objective of developmental finance. They need to prioritize training programs that will cultivate a culture of building sound businesses, with proper risk management, and are willing to adapt to change. As currently the key focus seems to be on credit facilitation which could be profit driven? / GR2018

Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / The provision of finance to the poor through group lending has evolved enormously over the years following the successful implementation by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the BancoSol in Bolivia. Various microfinance institutions in Swaziland also adopted this model and achieved varying results. Imbita Swaziland Women’s Finance Trust Fund is the only microfinance institution that has continuously embraced this model whilst others closed down or migrated to individual lending. This paper uses Imbita as the focal organisation for the study in order to understand the adoption of group lending in Swaziland. The core objectives of the paper were to evaluate Imbita’s experience in applying this model, understanding the characteristics of the groups they lend to and how the groups manage loan repayment. Data collected from the groups suggests that Imbita has relatively succeeded in applying group lending as evidenced by the high performance of group loans compared to individual loans. This success is attributed to close monitoring of the groups and peer selection at the group formation stage. The success is coupled with a few challenges which include inaccessibility of groups, capital limitations within the organisation and non repayment of loans. A majority of the groups comprised family members, aged between 26-45 years and are involved in informal business activities. The high presence of family members in the groups negatively affects the repayment performance of a group. Groups that had known each other for a longer period (11 years and above) prior to group formation perform better in loan repayment compared to those who have known each other for a shorter period (6-10 years). Groups still struggle with ensuring repayment of loans on time by members hence they always apply pressure on members to repay. However they still maintain the joint liability obligation by paying loans on behalf of members who need help in paying their loans. However, some groups have faced dissolution and were reformed as a result of non-payment. The application of group lending still requires design and implementation improvements. Some of the design improvements include ensuring homogeneity within the groups, reducing the sizes of groups, aligning repayment periods with the nature of each particular business and collecting sufficient information on borrowers. The high presence of family members within groups needs to be discouraged to improve loan repayment performance.