An investigation of the financial monitoring policies for microfinance institutions in Ghana

Abstract

The need to regulate microfinance institutions (MFIs) was advocated and researched yet lacks purposeful in-depth exploring studies of the formulation process of financial monitoring policies, their implementation and accompanying challenges. Consequently, this study contributes by reviewing the specific financial policies for microfinance in Ghana and assesses factors mitigating effective implementation of such policies. It also introduces implementation theory into the MF research arena, thus shifting MF research focus.The study revealed that policies formulated for MFIs in Ghana and elsewhere are skewed and policy implementation, monitoring and supervision found to be less effective. The results further identified inadequate support structures and large unlicensed profit-oriented informal microfinance operations in Ghana as major obstacles to efficient implementation of microfinance policies. This paper therefore recommends the creation of a semi-autonomous institution, the National Microfinance Oversight Authority, to license, regulate and supervise the informal microfinance institutions in Ghana.