**2. Literature review**

Younus [2] re-invented the concept of social business models and entrepreneurialism. The Grameen Bank model went on to become a benchmark for many studies conducted for poverty alleviation, social cause, and micro-finance service providers.

Dubreuil and Mirada [3] advocated the relationship between micro-finance and women's micro-entrepreneurship in developed countries. Micro-finance institutions have played an obvious role in empowering women by providing them the social credit to start up their own business. With a greater rate of loan repayment, women are found to be more involved in starting up their businesses with less capital resources. Lack of financial resources deprives females of a chance to earn their income and contribute to a country's economy but in recent years, micro-loans have enabled women to become active members of the society socio-economically. Sirika [4] debates on the socio-economic status of artisan women in West Wallaga. She compares, in her research, the socio-economic status of artisans in the past and the current situation. Women in this region are producers of utensils and other products which people use in their day-to-day chores. Their role in sustainable development is of special concern. The economic status of handicrafts women is ranked high as compared to non-artisan women. There are many challenges for these women and once again their work needs promotion and guidance. Their skills need to be enhanced and they need proper training in marketing techniques, negotiating prices, etc. They should be provided a place in the market to display their work. Hence, non-government organizations (NGOs) and other organizations should focus on the empowerment of these women along with other matters of interest.

Sinha [5] conducted her research to study the impact of motivation and social support on enterprise creation and women entrepreneurship. For the purpose, a sample of 400 men and women entrepreneurs of the northeast India was taken. The sample was selected using stratified random sampling. In her study, the author reports that industrialization is an important factor for developing human resources in any region. Women constituted half of the population of the country according to the 1991 census. Northeast India women were more involved in income-generating activities. They were running different trades in the area and they were dominant in many trading bazaars of Northeast India. According to her, one of the motivating factors for women to start an enterprise was independent economic status. More educated women took enterprise as a challenge, while women who were not highly qualified and educated started micro-enterprises to earn an income. For most of the women, home was the first preference, so it was also needed to make the family members understanding and accommodating. These women lacked proper financing for these micro-businesses and they bore high interest rates on loans they took for their work. They preferred to enter the handloom and handicrafts industry. Briefly, Sinha states that these women needed guidance and appreciation because they lacked many skills such as training, technology up-gradation, designing and new product development, packaging, and marketing. Different organizations working for entrepreneurship development should lead women in a defined direction using their spirits to excel in the industry. Despite all the aforementioned problems, women of this region have a very high potential to develop socio-economically.

Park and Changqing [6] established the Grameen Bank model in China to measure the effectiveness of reaching far-off clients in poverty-stricken areas. The model was created to gauge the performance of NGOs compared to formal financial institutions, but concluded that further innovations in methodology was required. Ahmed et al. [7] observed that reforms in foreign trade begin at the micro-level. By enhancing economic growth, the former can be achieved. Omoregie [8] describes each entrepreneurial activity as a challenge with abundant opportunities. He uses the buyer experience cycle and utility matrix, and the entrepreneurial process renewal, regeneration, and entrepreneuring model to close the gaps, enhance the opportunities, and build for a sustainable entrepreneurial environment. Rahman and Luo [9] critically evaluated the overall performance of three NGO-type micro-finance services in the Shaanxi province of China and compared them with the existing Grameen bank model. They concluded that more focus on outreach, credit performance, financial sustainability, and regulatory situation is required and awareness is to be generated for the selected micro-finance service providers to successfully govern the micro-finance lending. Samia [10] conducted an exploratory study to understand the entrepreneurial behavior among the women in the Pakistan and concluded that micro-finance lending helped more than half of the women with rural backgrounds to start a new business activity.

Barr [11] argued that micro-finance can help foster market innovations, noting that a sound credit history can play a vital role in channelizing these innovations. Jegatheesan et al. [12] embraced the idea of entrepreneurialism with micro-finance in Africa. They concluded that government strategies and acceptance of such activities is required for successful outcomes of such initiatives.
