A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Award of the Degree of Master of Science in Development Policy (Msc. DP) of Mzumbe University
he main objective of this study was to examine the impact of loan provided by BRAC in reducing poverty among women in Dodoma Municipality. The study used cross sectional research design to achieve this objective. The target group was between women who had secured loans from BRAC and women who had not secured loans from any financial institutions at the time of the study.
The study employed two main data sources, questionnaire and interview guide. The sample size was 100 respondents of which 47 were women who had secured loans from BRAC; 47 women who had not secured loans from financial institutions and 6 officers from BRAC. Differences in poverty levels between loan beneficiaries and loan non-beneficiaries were analyzed using an independent sample t-test and chi-square test. Differences were observed among five poverty indicators, namely income, savings, assets, education and health.
Findings indicate that BRAC reach poor women in Dodoma Municipality as most of the loan conditions are affordable for even to very poor women. However, the findings revealed that no association was found between assets ownership, savings, access to better health services and better education with respect to being a BRAC member.
Moreover, it was found that majority of women did not face any major constraint during loan processing, but some of them complained on delays, long process and hard conditions. The control group (non-beneficiaries) had no plan to secure loans from BRAC due to various reasons including interest rate, amount of loan given and hard conditions.
This study recommends sensitization of the community on the potential of interest free financial services provided by some banks in Tanzania. Finally, areas for further research are given to enhance our understanding on the research topic.