Accessibility to microfinance and its impacts on poverty alleviation in South-West Nigeria

Poverty is a world phenomenon. Its consequences are traumatic and dehumanizing. Several measures and strategies have been used to alleviate poverty and enhance economic empowerment. One of the economic measures is the Microfinance programme. In Nigeria, government had made efforts to alleviate poverty by creating economic opportunities in various forms and empowering the poor through education and financial resources. But the efforts proved elusive and poverty still remains pervasive and widespread especially in the rural communities in Nigeria. The objective of this study is to estimate the determinants of the accessibility to microfinance and its impacts on poverty alleviation in Nigeria particularly in the South-West Zone of the country. A total sum of 1,134 microfinance loan beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries were sampled from three out of the six states in the zone. Applied econometric techniques for development economics like logit and ordered logit regression models; with difference-in differences estimation approach were employed to analyse the data; and the Propensity Score Matching estimators were used to evaluate the potential selection bias. The results identified factors like age, business worth, health status and living standard as germane to microfinance accessibility by the rural poor. The impacts of microfinance loan are positive on poverty alleviation and income, but there is need for improvement; while the programme did not have substantial improvement on the living standard, consumption and health status of the poor in the study area. Government is implored to provide enabling environment for the MFIs and monitor the activities of the latter for better service delivery. MFIs are also advised to create more awareness on their operations and make less stringent conditions for the loan accessibility. The study is significant for academic research, policy formulation and economic planning