This paper has used empirical works of the author in the last decade to show that women of varied backgrounds have been included in microfinance schemes in Ghana. However, women continue to operate in the informal sector and so they have limited access to other capitalhuman, social, natural and physical- that should complement the micro financial capital they obtained. Hence, the participation of women in economic development activities at the local level is low and skewed towards support for household food and small holder food farming, processing and retail trading.

Women’s contribution to economic activities at local government and administration is negligible. As members of community based organizations, women’s contribution to leadership is largely known in all-women groups and hardly in mixed gender groups. The paper suggests that the real problems for women’s effective contribution in local economic development are more profound and cannot be tackled solely by capital injections by the micro financial sector but require fundamental structural changes of the socioeconomic conditions that define local economic development activity and a fuller support of all stakeholders at the local level.