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The study examines the perceptions of the services of the micro finance Institutions by the women service users, and how the services of micro Institutions affect businesses of the beneficiaries of the micro credit loans. The research design for the study was the survey method. The instruments of data collection were structured questionnaires and in-depth interview. A total of 450 questionnaires were administered to the female participants, and senior management personnel of the micro credit institutions were interviewed. The cluster and simple random sampling were used to select the participants for the study. The leaders of registered unions were the informants.  The result reveals that the poor services and attitude of officials of micro finance institutions and other problems like the regressive tax regimes, harsh economic climate and patriarchy are negatively affecting the business ventures of the loan beneficiaries and by implication the goals of poverty reduction via micro credit scheme . The women beneficiaries are groaning under the burden of loan repayment and meeting other obligations as mothers and wives. This study is applicable in the context of social policy development at this time when social services delivery is not only poor but at dismal level. The need for gender sensitive and social development becomes imperative. It is critical to social work practice in the context of advocacy, empowerment programs, facilitating and initiating service delivery and Community organizing by social workers that will enhance the war against Poverty and other social impediments against women empowerment in Nigeria.

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the factors having the most influence on the alleviation of poverty amongst the households adopting microfinance in Zambia. Ninety nine (n=99) respondents were randomly and purposively selected from amongst 340 microfinance adopters of the so-called Micro Bankers Trust programme operating a microfinance business in the Makululu Compound of Kabwe, Zambia. Socio-demographic primary data were collected through face-to-face interviews based on a semi-structured questionnaire instrument. The data were entered into an excel spreadsheet for analysis. The descriptive data were thereafter exported and fitted to an empirical model. The descriptive results revealed that the majority of the respondents were married, unemployed, fairly educated younger women from larger-sized poor households who drew their household income mainly from microfinance activities. The majority of the respondents thought microfinance had improved their well-being in some crucial areas. The results of the empirical model found that some respondents were indeed alleviated from poverty through microfinance. Conclusion drawn in this paper is that microfinance does alleviate poverty of the poor. 

Many credit schemes in Tanzania channel their funds to women with the objective of alleviating poverty among them. Despite this, majority of women in the country continue to wallow in poverty. The present research was carried out among the Foundation for International Community Assistance’s women credit beneficiaries in Mwanza. The study set out to address the following objectives: to analyze the influence of the husband’s cooperation, relevant training and interest rate on poverty alleviation among women credit beneficiaries in Tanzania taking Foundation for International Community Assistance in Mwanza as a case study. Using simple regression model, results showed that cooperation from the husband as well as relevant training influences poverty alleviation among women credit beneficiaries in Tanzania by 56 and 36 percent respectively. But interest rate was found to have no significant influence at all. The paper recommends that seminars be conducted so that husbands can be taught the importance of cooperating with their wives. Above all giving training to women credit beneficiaries will go a long way in sharpening their business skills. Future researchers should research on laziness and complacency among women credit beneficiaries and the influence on poverty.