Adebayo, P.OKadiri, I.BBadmus, D.A2018-05-212018-05-212014-09-072488:9997http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/243recent development project in Nigeria has been concentrated on urban area with no regard for rural areas. these have resulted in poor economy growth and high concentration of poverty in the rural area. in an attempt to address this rural SMEs has become paramount. this study investigate the relationship between SMEs financing and rural poverty reduction. a survey of 120 SMEs were undertaking across tow local government area on strata of ago-allied, manufacturing, trading/service with the aid of questionnaire. a total of 80 copies correctly filled and returned questionnaire were analyzed with correlation and t-test analysis. the result of the findings revealed the correlation coefficient of SMEs finance and poverty reduction equal o0.685 i.e 68.5%. this implies that SMEs finance have a positive correlation with rural poverty reduction. as increase in the formal leads to decrease in the later. the study concludes that formal and informal finance available for rural SMEs operators are crossly inadequate to cater for their financial need. it is also concluded that poor access to financing is not the only SMEs constraint as other include low managerial skills, infrastructure inadequacy, poor policy support and asymmetry. the study recommends among other that government should provide a platform for credit guarantee that will be responsible for provide collateral for rural SMEs.enSMEs financing,rural economy,job creationrural poverty,Article