Conventional Microfinance in Tunisia: A Tool to Fight Poverty

Abstract

Microfinance has been identified as an important tool for reducing poverty by increasing the productivity of the poor and thereby promoting economic development. Generally, the clients targeted by microfinance are in a relatively vulnerable and high-risk situation, with a generally unstable income that sometimes causes them to fall into extreme poverty. Across our sample only 26.7% have an income above 300 dinars. This result suggests that the surveyed population is very poor, especially when we find that among the 73.3% who have an income below 300 dinars, beneficiaries have a monthly income of less than 60 dinars before financing. This finding suggests that microfinance with its current tools unable to improve the incomes of the poor, so we find that Islamic microfinance can be a new mechanism to improve this sector according to the respondents. Our research aimed to measure the specific contribution of microfinance to improving the income of the poor living in rural areas of the Tunisian Sahel during a 3-month period in 2020. To test our hypotheses we adopted a mixed method that combines both documentary research and survey techniques (questionnaires and interviews), based essentially on:The available and accessible literature search which consists of the analysis and interpretation of previous theories and studies that address the same issues on which we base our own analysis. Questionnaires distributed to microcredit beneficiaries and some MFI managers and agents. During the analysis, we proceeded question by question before measuring the opinions of our subjects on the studied phenomenon. Thus, the data collected during the investigation phase is analyzed and processed using statistical methods. It consists in using and interpreting the data collected during our surveys