On her part, Esther Nyambura, an embroiderer, who says she was fired from several jobs because her attention was more focused on taking care of a special needs child, and now wishes to start her own tailoring business, told Enterprise she does not have adequate information about the funds to be able to take advantage of their existence.

Over the years, as it became apparent that entrepreneurship has the potential to create much needed jobs for the large number of unemployed graduates and youth in general, the government set up special funds to offer loans to financially marginalised groups faced with challenges accessing formal financing by commercial banks and other sources of capital.

The Women Enterprise Fund (WEF), Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) and Uwezo Fund, are all affirmative funds meant to provide an alternative, easily accessible and affordable finance to these special groups including people living with disabilities.

“Poor preparedness into business, compliance issues e.g. requisite licences, registration etc., and the fact that most lenders have shunned funding start-ups due to evidence that most of them are not able to grow, continually plague start-ups,” Uwezo Fund CEO, Peter Lengapiani, told Enterprise.

Women in Business Kenya (WIB-Kenya) CEO Mary Muthoni, agrees that information with regard to access to credit is a scarce resource to both the rural and urban poor womenfolk, as well as to MSMEs in general.