Contribution of Small and Medium Enterprises Run by Women in Generating Employment Opportunity in Rwanda

Abstract

Small and Medium Enterprises are the key to the national economic development as a way to improve its population livelihood. The main reason for this sector is a potential employment with the low cost of the capital. The contribution of small and medium enterprises run by women in society was recognized to the employment generation, gender equality and economic development. A personnel initiative, vision, and innovation to grow their businesses are well needed. In this research 15 districts out of 30 were selected to get all needed data, and thirteen (13) women were communicated in each selected district (15) as a sum of a hundred and ninety-five (195) correspondents. The combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used to analyze data, and questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data. Our results have been proved that small and medium enterprises run by women and sustainability of Rwandan economic development were closely related as the SMEs run by women increase and employment opportunities also increase. It was noted that women owned SMEs is a central driving effort behind gender equality, poverty reduction, and job creation. Therefore, it is recommended that the government might set the policy to encourage women in doing business whereby women in different regions of Rwanda should be given enough attention in economy activities through both small and medium enterprises, and entrepreneurship.