Authors : Sheku Mansaray, Mansoor Maitah, Tomas Hes and Karel Malec
Abstract: Microfinance institutions are primarily set up to avoid financial marginalization between poor people and formal banking institutions. Thus, it is suppose to be a social tool that is employed to mitigate poverty by providing access to financial services without unaffordable collateral securities but over the years this very purpose has been apparently called into question by the exploitative tendencies of its practitioners, especially in Sierra Leone. This study is set about to expose the inadequacies of microfinance activities in Sierra Leone and to warrant a rethink of the operations of the institutions, inorder to serve its core purpose. A sample group of 400 clients from Bari chiefdom in the Southern Province, Pujehun District are supported by a microfinance institution while the other sample group of 400 non-clients from Niawa chiefdom in the Eastern Province, Kenema District, a non microfinance-supported zone are compared using four key indicators of poverty assessment. The comparison, however did not show any significant difference in the welfare of the sample groups thus, emphasising the notion that microfinance apparently cannot mitigate poverty singularly and without the contributions of other poverty reduction mechanisms.
Sheku Mansaray, Mansoor Maitah, Tomas Hes and Karel Malec, 2015. Microfinance in Southeastern Sierra Leone. International Business Management, 9: 498-507.