ROLE OF MICROFINANCE IN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN DISTRICT DIR (LOWER)

This research was conducted to analyze the impacts of microfinance on socio-economic conditions of microfinance borrowers in district Dir lower KPK, i.e. women empowerment and poverty alleviation. After literature review data was collected through structured questionnaires and in depth semi structured interviews. The targeted clients were either clients of the Bank of Khyber, Helping Hands or its implementing partner Crescent. Descriptive statistics and Correlation analysis were applied to the collected data using SPSS version 16. It was observed from the research that there is positive impact of microfinance on women empowerment and poverty alleviation though it was not very significant. In addition to this, microfinance are found to have serving less poor people while people in deep poverty still have a very limited access to microfinance funds. Overall microfinance plays positive role against poverty and it empowers women up to satisfactory level.Key Words: Poverty Alleviation, Microfinance and Women’s Empowermen