The Role of Microfinance Institutions in Increasing Well Being of Their Clients

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of Esaar Microfinance program of
HHRD on social wellbeing of its beneficiaries. The main idea behind this study is to
observe whether Esaar Microfinance Program of HHRD has any considerable impact
on socioeconomic indicators. For this purpose we have selected respondents from the
program area i.e. Naran Valley of District Mansehra where 200 beneficiaries have
been surveyed out of more than 1000. Predesigned questionnaire based survey was
conducted for the collection of primary data for two periods i.e. year 2015 and year
2019 from the same beneficiaries. In this study social wellbeing is measured from
indicators like education, health, income, assets, expenditure and savings. It has been
observed that the program has positive impact on socioeconomics indicators, while it
has positive significant impact on economic indicators i.e. income, assets, expenditure
and savings. Esaar Microfinance program of HHRD has adopted social collateral
approach to mitigate the risk and this approach leads to the social bonding of the
community. Now the people of that area are engaged in participative approach which
indicates the social wellbeing as well as the economic uplift of the community.