Impact of Microfinance on Entrepreneurs in Afghanistan: An Analysis of Selected Cases

Abstract
Microfinance and entrepreneurship help decrease poverty and leads to economic growth in the least developed countries (LDCs). Generally, entrepreneurs in Afghanistan are under privileged due to the lack of financial and infrastructure resources and uncertain political situations to operate their businesses.In the last decades,Afghan entrepreneurs setup their small and micro businesses with government and microfinance institutions' financial support. This research considered 28 entrepreneurs' success stories to examine how microfinance impacts their income growth after receiving loans. The study is constructed on the secondary data source,and the statistical analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS25. Therefore, the data was not normally distributed. The authors used the Wilcoxon Sing Rank Test,a Non parametric Test, and found that microfinance positively impacts an entrepreneur's income in Afghanistan. The research also indicated that there had been a significant improvement in saving level and employment opportunities since they have availed loans from MFIs/MFB. The finding of this case study,coupled with the MFIs/MFB, claims that MFIs/MFB improve the entrepreneur's income,savings and facilitate employment opportunities. Keywords: Afghanistan, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, Income Generation, Microfinance