Improving the well-being of the poor through microfinance : evidence from the Small Enterprise Foundation in South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Poverty in South Africa's rural areas is complex and severe, especially among female-headedhouseholds. The marginalisation of South Africa's rural areas over a period of decadesresulted in an acute lack of economic opportunities, limited infrastructure and a seriousbreakdown of social capital. Women living in rural areas are particularly poor in moneymetricterms; they are often illiterate and therefore isolated from economic and socialopportunities; and many fall victim to violence in the household. They eke out a meagreexistence, based on small-scale agriculture, marginal self-employment or limited wage andremittance income. While such income diversification, combined with the government'srange of development interventions, helps to buffer them against risks such as illness, deathand disaster, rural poverty is not just a matter of income and assets. It is also rooted in otherdisadvantages, such as exclusion, disempowerment and unequal power relations. These allcontribute to making poverty a multidimensional phenomenon.The South African government has committed significant resources to poverty interventionover the past 17 years. These interventions, which include social assistance grants, basicmunicipal services and free water, electricity, schooling and health services, certainly have animpact on the livelihoods of the rural poor, but they do not seem to bring a significantimprovement in the standard of living of the most vulnerable people in marginalised areas.There is increasing recognition in the poverty literature that vulnerabilities – of income,health, social exclusion and service delivery – are linked, and that support programmesshould focus not only on increasing the poor's access to resources and assets but also onempowering individuals to use these assets and make decisions.This study investigates the potential of microfinance to address the overlappingvulnerabilities experienced by women in South Africa's rural areas. It suggests thatmicrofinance has the potential to generate positive shifts in selected indicators ofempowerment and well-being among participating women in rural areas. These claims aretested by evaluating data gathered among clients of the Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF)against a conceptual framework. The framework offers a stepwise progression away fromvulnerability: acquiring internal skills (empowerment), strengthening social capital,accumulating assets and, eventually, transforming these assets into wealth.Existing datasets, gathered over a period of five years in rural Limpopo and representing botha group that received microfinance from SEF and a control group, were examined. Noevidence could be found that the recipients of SEF's microfinance experienced increasedempowerment, but the results did provide evidence that belonging to the group that receivedmicrofinance increased the likelihood of experiencing livelihood security and well-being.The findings show that microfinance can, even over the short term, make a difference inpeople's ability to smooth their consumption and, as such, provide them with more securelivelihoods. The research also suggests that microfinance assists women in rural areas inconstructing and maintaining a portfolio of assets, thus improving well-being among therecipients of microfinance.The scope of the study was confined to measuring the effect of microfinance on selectedpoverty indicators, and it did not attempt to prove that microfinance alleviates poverty. Assuch, the research demonstrates that the government's efforts to reduce rural poverty can becomplemented by micro-level interventions such as access to finance.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University