Microcredit as a Strategy for Poverty Reduction in Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria
Abur, Cyprian Clement; Torruam, Japheth Terande

Abstract
The study investigates microcredit as a strategy for poverty reduction in Benue state, Nigeria. Primary data were used and applied on a cross-sectional data of 274 respondents in 2012. The analytical tools include descriptive statistics and logit regression model. The result shows that 0.52 and 0.022 incidence of sever poverty existed before and after microcredit. The Gini coefficient also indicates a high and low income inequality of 0.6 and 0.04 existed before and after microcredit. The result from logit regression techniques, indicates that the computed value of Nagelkerke R2 is as high as 0.723, this implies that microcredit influence the poverty status of the respondents. The study concluded that microcredit institutions in the study area are bisected with myriad of problems. However, microcredit has help in reducing poverty among the respondents. The study recommends that the capital base of microcredit institutions should be increased so as to meet up with the required demand of respondents and also ensures that microcredit are judiciously use.

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