Rural women empowerment through microcredit: a comparative study between a small microcredit unit of leading go (BRDB) and NGO (BRAC) in Savar Upazila

Abstract

Microcredit has been disbursing among the rural women without collateral for last few decades for the ‘well being’ and empowerment of them. This study investigates the women empowerment through microcredit following mixed methods involving 42 female borrowers of two root level units selected randomly from Savar upazila, Dhaka who are equally from BRDB and BRAC representing Government organizations (GOs) and Non Government Organizations (NGOs) of Bangladesh respectively. The study contributes to understand women empowerment with the involvement in microcredit program and whether the empowerment is sustainable or not. The result explores almost all the female borrowers are capable of increasing their income and limited savings while few of them achieve the ability to participate in different decision making activities of their personal and family affairs. Furthermore, improvement of position against domestic violence, personal skills, social status, political consciousness and legal awareness strengthen morale of the majority credit beneficiaries.