Challenges facing women owned micro enterprises when accessing business information in limuru constituency, Kenya

The researchers focused on the challenges faced by women owned micro enterprises in accessing business information in Limuru Constituency, Kenya. Survey research design was used. The target population included 1764 women owned micro enterprises. Stratified random sampling and focus group discussions were utilized. The researchers found that the women respondents were fairly well educated as 77.2% of the women interviewed had secondary and post secondary education. Lack of information systems presented the biggest challenge at 76.5% followed by information available being expensive (71.6%) and business information available not being applicable to the local context (66.8%). To a lesser but still significant degree, outdated information, lack of knowledge on the availability of information and lack of relevant skills to access the information were identified. Information that was most sought after was in finance/credit, markets and investments while the least sought after was on taxation and insurance. Through cross tabulation and correlation analysis, it was found that there was minimal relationship between most of the factors above. The conclusion was that while an area may be in a rural setting, having an information system which disseminates relevant information may be a greater determinant of access to information than the geographical location.