Review the Effects of Micro-Credit on Economic Empowerment of the Rural Poor Case study: Ghani Begloo Village, Zanjan City

Different schools of development considers investment as their fundamental principle. The existence of investment enables the operation and efficiency of the surrounding area, especially in rural areas which can lead to sustainable development. Today for achieving the paradigm of rural sustainable development, rural planners has emphasized more on empowerment of target groups (the poor, widowed women, landless laborers and small farmers) and believed that at the present, poverty is the most threatening factor of the environment. Over the last three decades, microcredit approach with the aim of accessing rural poor to financial resources in a lot of developing countries was conducted and has had successful results. This paper seeks to answer this question that to what extent, granting such credits can affect on the economic empowerment of rural poor. Identifying the extent of this strategy effects on the economic empowerment of the rural poor is the purpose of this paper. The research method is descriptive – analytical method and the method for collecting data is field and library method (questionnaire and interview). The statistical society of the present study includes Ganiabad Bigloo village. Among 33 villages of this area, 4 villages were selected and classified by using probable sampling method and questionnaires were prepared from all the families received the credits. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (one- sample t test, Pearson correlation and multivariable regression) were used. The results showed that such credits has not lead to economic empowerment of the rural poor but there is an outstanding relation between the increase of credit amount and improvement of economic empowerment indices.