The Impact of Development Grants on Growth of Smes in Rural Tanzania
Graduate Research Pre-Proposal Summery Statement of Intended Research Topic
(CONCEPT PAPER)
1. Topic of Research:
The suggested research topic is: "The Impact of Development Grants on Growth of SMEs in Rural Tanzania".
2. Brief Statement of the Research Problem:
Tanzania has recognised the importance of SMEs to the economic developments of the country, and has taken various measures to support their growth. However, despite of the efforts to enhance SMEs growth into the country, still a number of factors limit their growth. One of the many limiting factors is lack of capital to start up businesses by many potential entrepreneurs. This is coupled with the unwillingness of microfinance institutions (MFI) in the country to extend soft loans to rural entrepreneurs for various reasons.
As a measure to ensure the rural entrepreneurs get capital to start up small businesses for income generation, the government in collaboration with other development agents have resorted to giving grants to rural communities so to start up small businesses and generate income.
Various arguments have been put forward for and against this motive. There are those who support extending grants to business start ups arguing that it enhances growth of SMEs by providing capital to the needy which is otherwise could not be obtained. Others oppose the decision with arguments that grants do not support sustainable growth of SMEs but create dependence syndrome instead (Battle, P. (2007), Khan, M. (2008)).
I therefore propose to conduct a study to find out the impact of grants on growth of SMEs in Tanzania, especially the rural areas where MFI credits are minimal or non-existent. I shall take the ongoing programme under TASAF as a case study. Currently TASAF is giving grants to small groups of vulnerable individuals as capital to start up small businesses for income generation and growth. To what extent these grants support growth of the groups? Is sufficient number of groups grew up into
(CONCEPT PAPER)
1. Topic of Research:
The suggested research topic is: "The Impact of Development Grants on Growth of SMEs in Rural Tanzania".
2. Brief Statement of the Research Problem:
Tanzania has recognised the importance of SMEs to the economic developments of the country, and has taken various measures to support their growth. However, despite of the efforts to enhance SMEs growth into the country, still a number of factors limit their growth. One of the many limiting factors is lack of capital to start up businesses by many potential entrepreneurs. This is coupled with the unwillingness of microfinance institutions (MFI) in the country to extend soft loans to rural entrepreneurs for various reasons.
As a measure to ensure the rural entrepreneurs get capital to start up small businesses for income generation, the government in collaboration with other development agents have resorted to giving grants to rural communities so to start up small businesses and generate income.
Various arguments have been put forward for and against this motive. There are those who support extending grants to business start ups arguing that it enhances growth of SMEs by providing capital to the needy which is otherwise could not be obtained. Others oppose the decision with arguments that grants do not support sustainable growth of SMEs but create dependence syndrome instead (Battle, P. (2007), Khan, M. (2008)).
I therefore propose to conduct a study to find out the impact of grants on growth of SMEs in Tanzania, especially the rural areas where MFI credits are minimal or non-existent. I shall take the ongoing programme under TASAF as a case study. Currently TASAF is giving grants to small groups of vulnerable individuals as capital to start up small businesses for income generation and growth. To what extent these grants support growth of the groups? Is sufficient number of groups grew up into
References: 1. The United Republic of Tanzania, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Policy (2002). 2. Calcopietro, C & Massawe, D. (1999) Tanzania Small And Medium Scale Enterprise Policy Proposals, Dar es salaam, Tanzania. 3. Dionco-Adetayo, E. Makinde, J. Adetayo, J. (2005) Evaluation of Policy Implementation in Women Entrepreneurship Development. Department of Management and Accounting, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria 4. Adam, J 5. Battle, P. (2007) "Grants, Credit, and Poverty Reduction". (http//www.scn.org/cmp), site visited on 18.04.2009 6. F.A.O 7. Ghauri, P. and Gronhaug, K. (2005), Research methods in Business studies, A practical Guide (Third Edition), Pearson education limited-England. 8. Khan, M. (2008), Scheme for the poor unlikely to achieve objectives: Lack of monitoring system, favouritism big threats, (http//www.dawn.com) site visited on 19/04/2009. 9. Sen A. (1985), Commodities and capabilities, North-Holland, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 10. Sennoga, E. Matovu, J. and Twimukye, E. (2009) Social Cash Transfers for the Poorest in Uganda, A Concept Note. 11. The United Republic of Tanzania (2005), TASAF II Operations manual 12. Watts H 13. Wuyts, M. (2006) Developing Social Protection in Tanzania within a Context of Generalised Insecurity, REPOA Special Paper No. 06.19, Mkuki na nyota publishers, Dar es salaam Tanzania.