Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts in project management and evaluation of sokoine university of agriculture. Morogoro, tanzania
The empowerment of women has been associated with development of economies around the world. This study aimed at assessing the contribution of SILC in improving women economic status. The study was conducted in Morogoro Municipal and adopted a cross-sectional research design. Questionnaire was administered to 100 respondents to collect quantitative data while qualitative data were collected from 8-10 FGD participants both men and women. Women’s economic empowerment index scales was developed using five indices to gauge the level of women’s economic empowerment in different spheres; cumulative empowerment index was computed to gauge the overall women economic empowerment. An ordinal logistic regression was used to determine the effect/contribution of SILC to women economic empowerment. It was found that half of the respondents (50%) attained medium level of empowerment. The study concludes that SILC has a great potential to empower women economically. Additionally, the level of empowerment was relatively high in the sphere of economic contribution and control over savings and income. In addition, duration in SILC, involvement in IGAs and education were good predictors of women’s economic empowerment (P<0.005). Thus, it is concluded that, SILC has a great potential to empower women economically. Therefore, it is recommended that stakeholders and NGOs should encourage women to join SILC