DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2017.v05i11.002

Pages: 1552-1562

Evidence on gender participation in development shows that women play critical roles in rural development, but more often they do not have significant control over the benefits accruing from their labour. As such men dominate decision-making regarding the appropriation of women labor proceeds. Hence, women have resorted into self-help groups for livelihood diversification and as a measure against vulnerability to poverty. However, the drivers of women self-help group performance remain largely unknown given that they vary across time and space. This chapter is the result of a survey carried out in Nyandarua County, Kenya to determine socio-economic factors responsible for the performance of local women self-help groups. It involved stratified, proportionate and simple random sampling techniques to sample 160 respondents. Focus group and key informant interviews and a survey were utilized to collect primary data that was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study found that level of education, occupation, farm size and other member household characteristics played an important role in the performance of the groups. Consequently, recommendations have been made to make these groups more effective including strengthening the socio-economic indicators through extension education programmes among group members.