Impact of microcredit in sustainable rural development to women's entrepreneurship: İzmir case

Entrepreneurship is one of the most important dynamics of the economic and social development of countries. If countries want to reveal individuals with entrepreneurial potential and to achieve great reductions in unemployment rates, they must increase and support the number of entrepreneurs who contribute to economic growth. Women have always been a very important part of social and economic life in all societies. Women have very important efforts to produce for their families, especially in rural areas. Therefore, there is a need for approaches and supports that will facilitate women's organization in rural areas around their own priorities. Therefore, the economic and social contributions of women entrepreneurs should be evaluated more realistically and for the future. Prof. Dr. The Grameen Model, which Muhammed Yunus started to implement in the 1970s and aims for poor people to establish a new business or improve their existing business, is used as a tool in the fight against poverty in many countries of the world today. Micro-credit, which is successfully carried out in more than a hundred countries in the world and in Turkey; In order to encourage them to engage in income-generating activities, it is expressed as a loan given as small capital, especially to poor women, without interest or guarantor. While micro-credit applications, which are based on the trust in women living in rural areas and aim to eliminate their poverty, help women to become stronger socially and economically in society; it also reveals that extremely poor women can be entrepreneurs. In this study, the functioning of the micro-credit system in Izmir and the social and economic effects of the micro-credit system on women were tried to be examined. For this purpose, 66 women entrepreneurs using micro credits were interviewed and a multiple choice questionnaire was applied in cooperation with İzmir Grameen Bank Microfinance Branch. In these interviews, the socio-demographic profiles of women using micro-credit in İzmir, their purpose of using micro-credit, what kind of work they do with micro-credit, whether micro-credit causes a change in their income levels and social lives, whether micro-credit contributes to employment, micro-credit It has been tried to reveal what kind of problems they encountered in the application and what they suggested for the solution of the problems encountered. It was reached the end of the survey that women having used micro credits in İzmir were contented with the system in a considerable extent and they encountered a number of problems such as insufficiency of given credit, marketing problems despite micro credit had considerable contributions to their economic and social life. In this study, we examine whether micro credit is increased women's income in İzmir province. We found that it has notable effect on enhanced women's income. Keywords: Rural Development, Micro Credit, Women Entrepreneurship, İzmir