Unlocking the Potential of Microfinance Solutions on Urban Woman Entrepreneurship Development in East Africa: A Bibliometric Analysis Perspective

Abstract

Empowering women is essential for poverty alleviation and open involvement of woman entrepreneurs in line for entrepreneurship development. Nonetheless, several woman-led enterprises and woman entrepreneurs have scarce opportunities to revitalize beyond the dearth of financial services to realize financial freedom. This article’s approach hinges on a bibliometric analysis to survey recent developments and trends in microfinancing woman-owned enterprises and how this field is expected to transform to recent financial technological progress over successive years. We review existing evidence from 402 published articles indexed in the Scopus database from January 2003 to March 2023 to explain the current research development and interrelated prospects for enhancing studies on microfinance for woman entrepreneurship. The results vividly indicate that access to a stream of microfinancing credit is fundamental to the prosperity of urban woman-led enterprises across all countries. Despite this, woman entrepreneurs still encounter several obstacles when starting new businesses or expanding existing ones. With a growing demand for substantial sums of external financing to transition to sustainable business practices, their contribution to sustainable development is most often unreachable. Thus, any financing strategies focused on allowing access to microfinance credit by woman entrepreneurs are necessary to enable this sector to receive the benefits of economic freedom. This study offers good insights for current and potential entrepreneurs to bridge the financing gaps in emerging economies as a strategy for strengthening the capability of woman entrepreneurs to pursue economic opportunities that can inspire sustainable business enterprises and contribute to sustainable development. Finally, the study provides a foundation for future research in the domain of entrepreneurial financing for MSMEs.