Prof. LUKETERO STEPHEN WANYONYI

Women owned SMEs have continued to collapse despite the growing number of initiatives and resources made available to promote and develop women’s entrepreneurship in developing countries. Women are still earning less money in their businesses that have a slow growth, are more likely to fail and tend to be more necessity entrepreneurs. In Nkubu town Imenti South Sub-County, sustainability of women owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is facing a lot of challenges. The purpose of this study was to establish the factors influencing sustainability of women owned SMEs in Nkubu town Imenti South Sub-County, Meru County. The study was guided by the following objectives; to establish the influence of entrepreneurial training, networking opportunities, source of funding and technological know-how on sustainability of women owned SMEs in Nkubu town Imenti South Sub-County, Meru County. The findings of this study would be of great importance to the women who are involved in SMEs in Meru county and entire parts of the country. The findings of this study would be used by government and policy makers to get the insight of real factors influencing sustainability of women owned SMEs on issues of management as compared to their counterparts. This study was anchored on pecking order theory, credit rationing theory and household economic portfolio model. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population for this study was 286 owners of SMEs comprising of food vendors, clothing vendors, beverages vendors, services vendors and curio vendors Stratified random sampling technique was used in this …