See also case studies on micro-finance and ethical enterprise pages pages
MAYOUX, L. (1995)
From Vicious to Virtuous Circles? Gender and Micro-Enterprise Development
UNRISD Geneva
http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/document.nsf/ab82a6805797760f80256b4f005da1ab/5901781754e7c91580256b67005b6af7/$FILE/opb3.pdf
gender/ micro-enterprise
The paper critically reviews some of the past and current experience of micro-enterprise programmes for women: training, credit and producer groups and co-operatives. Although there are some successes, the evidence indicates that the majority of programmes fail to make any significant impact on women's incomes and cannot be assumed to have a beneficial impact on gender inequalities.
The diversity of the small-scale sector on the one hand and the complexity of constraints posed by poverty and inequality on the other make the likelihood of any 'blueprint' extremely slim. There is a very delicate balance between the need for more effective participation, resource-efficiency and scale.
What is clear however is that micro-enterprise cannot be seen as the 'all-win bottom-up' solution to a wide range of development problems as the rhetoric would imply. It cannot be seen as a subsitute for welfare programmes, direct efforts to support women workers or to address gender inequalities.
MAYOUX, L. (1995).
“ Beyond Naivety: Women, Gender Inequality and Participatory Development: Some Thorny Issues.” Development and Change 26: 235-258.
gender/ participation/ participatory development/
In recent years, participatory development has become an established orthodoxy among development agencies across the political spectrum: at the same time, the importance of consulting with and recruiting women has been highlighted in most discussions of participatory strategies. Based on the author's own research and a range of secondary sources, this article focuses on gender aspects of participatory projects.
This evidence suggests that gender inequalities in resources, time availability and power, influence the activities, priorities and framework of participatory projects just as much as 'top-down 'development' and market activities. Contrary to the views of a number of writers and activists on participatory development, increasing the numbers of women involved in participatory projects cannot, therefore, be seen as a soft alternative to specific attention to change in gender inequality. Meeting the demands of poor women in the South will require not only local participatory projects, but a linking with wider movements for change in the national and international development agenda.
MAYOUX, L. (1998).
Gender, Accountability and Ngos: Avoiding the Black Hole.
Missionaries and Mandarins: Feminist Engagement with Development Institutions. C. Miller and S. Razavi. London, ITDG/UNRISD: 172-193.
gender mainstreaming/ NGOs/ gender policy
In the 1990s NGOs were seen as a driving force for change, mobilising women's constituencies to challenge gender subordination at the local, national and international levels. This optimism was partly a result of the large and growing numbers of women involved in the NGO sector and the increasing influence of many women's NGOs in national and international policy debates. Equally importantly, NGO organisational mandates generally focused on poverty alleviation and empowerment rather than just economic growth. This enabled gender lobbies within a number of prominent southern and Northern NGOs to formulate a common agenda for women's empowerment and for increasing gender accountability within their own organisations. These internal pressures were paralleled by the introduction of gender policies within many donor agencies leading to increase support for gender initiatives of NGOs.
At the same time there had been a rapid increase in the number and size of NGOs, their political visibility and the resources at their disposal. Underlying this promotion of NGOs there was a general consensus on a number of mutually reinforcing comparative advantages of NGOs compared with other development agencies. These are firstly, their participatory nature, and/or ability to reach the poor and socially marginalised and represent their interests. Secondly, their independence, innovativeness, and efficiency to maximise (particularly for those on the left) impact on the wider development process and/or (particularly for those on the right) use of donor resources. This paper discusses the implications of the competing aims and objectives of NGOs. It is based on interview material, unpublished internal documents, and secondary literature. It concentrates on nine NGOs with an explicit commitment to women's empowerment: SEWA and Working Women's Forum in India, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and six UK NGOs (Oxfam, ActionAid, Womankind, ACORD, Christian Aid And OneWorld Action).
It is argued that the potential advantages identified
for NGOs also have potentially positive gender implications,
making NGOs potentially more responsive to women's
needs, more likely to challenge underlying gender inequalities,
and/or more flexible and efficient in achieving these
aims than other development agencies. At the same time,
where an explicit commitment to gender equity and women's
empowerment does not exist, it is argued that gender
policy risks falling into a 'black hole ' between competing
accountabilities and imperatives of efficiency, participation
and ‘scaling up’. All of these also have
potentially negative gender implications. The paper
concludes by proposing a threefold strategy for improving
gender accountability of the development process through
support for NGOs. Firstly far greater support for organisations
and programmes specifically addressing gender inequities
through grass-roots mobilisation, advocacy, and lobbying.
Secondly a much firmer commitment to the inclusion
of gender criteria for the funding of all programmes,
with impact assessments beyond mere numerical statements
of women's participation. Thirdly parallel changes
in the structure of donor agencies and dominant neoliberal
development agenda. Support for NGOs cannot be seen
as a 'soft alternative' to macrolevel change.
MAYOUX, L. (1999).
“ Questioning Virtuous Spirals: Micro-Finance and Women's Empowerment in Africa.” Journal of International Development 11: 957-984.
Africa/
micro-finance/ empowerment/
The promotion of micro-finance programmes for women has become increasingly controversial. There has been no systematic cross-cultural or inter-organisational comparison of relative impacts of different models or strategies. As a preliminary to such a study this paper attempts to piece together existing and largely unpublished evidence on 15 programmes in Africa, based on secondary source material and the author's own exploratory research.
The first section of the paper clarifies some of the assumptions about 'virtuous spirals' of empowerment underlying different paradigms of micro-finance provision. The following sections then examine the degree to which the evidence supports or challenges these assumptions and the questions which need to be asked by gender analysis. The evidence indicates that for some women in some contexts, even very poor women, micro-finance programmes can indeed contribute to empowerment. However for many women impact on both economic and social empowerment appears to be marginal and some women may be positively disempowered.
These diverse outcomes indicate extremely complex interrelationships between women's own strategies for use of micro-finance to further their perceived interests and contextual opportunities and constraints and programme policies. Although existing data is inadequate to reach firm conclusions about details of policy, it does indicate the need to explicitly incorporate strategies for empowerment rather than just increasing women's access to micro-finance.
MAYOUX, L. (2000)
Jobs, Gender, and Small Enterprises: Getting the Policy Environment Right
ILO Geneva
http://www.ilo.org/dyn/empent/docs/F228761170/WP15-2001.pdf
US/ UK
gender/ micro-enterprise/ enabling environments/
Micro and small enterprise (MSE) development for women
is currently being promoted as a key intervention for
women by governments and development agencies across
the political spectrum. This emphasis is partly because
of evidence of the rapid expansion of women’s entrepreneurship since the 1980s, and hence the increasing numerical importance of women entrepreneurs as a development constituency. Millions of women at all income levels in developing, transition and industrialized countries are setting up enterprises. In some countries women entrepreneurs now outnumber men in the small-scale sector. The numbers and scale of women’s
enterprises are increasing at a faster rate than those
of men.
Since the mid-1990s attention has increasingly focused on how the economic, legal and social environments can be made even more conducive to expansion and development of the small-scale sector. Although there is a broad consensus on the development potential of small-scale enterprises and the importance of an enabling environment, there are disagreements about some aspects.
· The main aims of MSE development in the context of development as a whole;
· Definitions of the MSE sector and characterization of different types of MSE;
· What is meant by environment and categorization of different levels of environment, generally referred to as micro-level, meso- or sectoral level, and macro-level, and their relative prioritization in policy intervention;
· Approach to gender, being the ways in which gender/ issues have been (generally rather belatedly) inserted into male/mainstream arguments.
Part I of this paper identifies three distinct paradigms
of MSE development for women underlying current debates
about best practice. Part II reviews the evidence regarding
the impact of different dimensions of economic and
social change on women’s entrepreneurship based on an analysis of existing documentation and information. It focuses particularly on material from Africa (Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa), South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), Europe (the UK, the EU’s policy), and the US. Part III argues that providing an enabling environment for women’s
enterprise will require a radical shift in conceptual
frameworks from socially responsible growth generally
confined to voluntary self-regulation by vested interests,
to socially equitable growth which provides the necessary regulation and support for empowerment and poverty eradication. This in turn requires a holistic framework of integrated macro- and meso-level policies to adequately address the multiple constraints facing women entrepreneurs, and particularly poor women. The final section of the paper gives details what such a holistic framework would entail in terms of concrete policies.
MAYOUX, L. (2000)
Micro-Finance and the Empowerment of Women - a Review of the Key Issues
Social Finance Unit, ILO Geneva
http://ilo.org/public/english/employment/finance/papers/mayoux.htm
Zimbabwe/ Cameroon/
gender/ micro-finance/ empowerment
Considerable advances were made in the 1990s in the design of NGO-managed programmes and poverty-targeted banks to increase women's access to small loans and savings facilities. Literature prepared for the Micro-credit Summit Campaign presented an extremely attractive vision of increasing numbers of expanding micro-finance programmes which not only give many women access to micro-finance services, but also initiate a 'virtuous upward spiral' of empowerment. This optimism about the implicit empowerment potential of credit and savings pervaded most donor statements on micro-finance. donors and NGOs tended to expand their micro-finance activities generally rather than support more explicitly empowerment-focussed interventions for women. On the other hand some researchers questioned how far microfinance benefits women. Some argued that micro-finance programmes divert the attention of women from other more effective strategies for empowerment, and the attention and the resources of donors from alternative, and possibly more effective means of alleviating poverty .
There are four basic views on the link between Micro-finance, and women's empowerment:
· those who stress the positive evidence and are essentially optimistic about the possibility of sustainable micro-finance programmes world-wide empowering women;
· those who recognize the limitations to empowerment, but explains those with poor programme design;
· those who recognize the limitations of micro-finance for promoting empowerment, but see it as a key ingredient as important in themselves within a strategy to alleviate poverty; empowerment in this view needs to be addressed by other means;
· those who see micro-finance programmes as a waste of resources.
This paper clarifies these issues within the context of the debate about gender mainstreaming. The paper is based on research by the author and secondary source material. An Appendix gives summary details of the15 case studies which form the main basis of the arguments.
The paper concludes that women's empowerment needs to be an integral part of policies. Empowerment cannot be assumed to be an automatic outcome of micro-finance programmes, whether designed for financial sustainability or poverty targeting. More research and innovation on conditions of micro-finance delivery is needed. The paper finds that cost-effective ways of integrating micro-finance with other empowerment interventions, including group development and complementary services are still lacking. Unless empowerment is an integral part of the planning process, the rapid expansion of micro-finance is unlikely to make more than a limited contribution to empowerment.
MAYOUX, L. (1982).
Women's Work and Economic Power in the Family: A Study of Two Villages in West Bengal. Cambridge University.
India/ West Bengal/
household/ gender/ micro-enterprise/
MAYOUX, L. (1989).
“Income Generation for Women in India: Problems and Prospects.” Development Policy Review 7: 5-28.
India/ West Bengal/
micro-enterprise/ gender/ handicrafts/
In the 1980s there was a substantial change in official government attitudes towards women's employment policy in India. Proposals in the Five Year Plans were quite ambitious. Measures included the modernisation of industries preferred by women, the promotion of self-employment through expanded credit and training schemes, and the breaking down of barriers to women entering new occupations through special training facilities. Nevertheless, women were still largely ignored in general development programmes. In practice, employment development for women was mainly limited to 'income generation ' in handicrafts and cottage industries through encouragement of self-employment or various types of small-scale organisation. This article was based on in-depth survey and anthropological research in West Bengal over three years. The research focused on two adjacent areas around Santiniketan where handicrafts have been developed and followed up as many training, credit and women's organisation beneficiaries as could be traced in the area. It also looked at women's work in private sector handicrafts: bag weaving, embroidery, bamboo work and tailoring.
The research found that the large numbers of handicraft schemes in the area studied had failed in economic terms. The majority of women did not continue in handicraft production following either training (12 out of 146) or bank loans (10 out of 100). Of the many women's organisations started few survived any length of time (3 out of 43). Even though most of the support was explicitly poverty targeted, few reached very poor women or those from Scheduled caste or Scheduled tribe groups. The schemes had also been found to have had minimal impact on the incomes of those women who were involved in handicraft production and on their control over income. This failure contrasted to the dynamic expansion of women's employment in private sector handicraft production for women who had not received any training or bank loans or organisational support. Moreover much of this expansion was through women teaching other women skills as they married out from their natal home.
The research concluded that the failure of the government programmes could not be attributed to lack of profitability within industries or lack of women's enthusiasm for income generation opportunities. The most immediately obvious problems were found to be due to bad administration and planning which led to ineffective targeting even in targeted schemes, and irrelevance in the context of the industries concerned. The paper suggests a number of concrete ways in which the programmes could have been improved both in terms of enabling women to earn an income and control this income. However it is unlikely that these changes would take place without quite far reaching changes in the attitudes of the bureaucracy towards women's issues and poverty alleviation in general. Successful implementation of the schemes also requires the target groups to be more aware and empowered to demand their rights, both as women and as workers. There is a need for income generation schemes to be seen in the wider framework of the women's movement.
MAYOUX, L. (1992).
“From Idealism to Realism: Women, Feminism and Empowerment in Nicaraguan Tailoring Cooperatives.” Development and Change 23(2): 91-114.
Latin America/ Nicaragua/
cooperatives/ gender/ micro-enterprise/ tailoring/
Co-operatives have been widely promoted as the ideal type of project for women. Because of the focus on income earning, they have been seen as less threatening that more explicit attempts to organise feminist consciousness-raising groups. Based on field research conducted in 1988, this article discusses the experience of women in Nicaraguan tailoring cooperatives. After the 1979 revolution, these were set up on a large-scale as part of a wider economic policy and grass-roots political mobilisation. After an initial period of expansion in which many women benefited both in the improved income and access to training and management experience, the cooperatives found themselves in serious difficulty in 1988. It is argued that even without the wider economic crisis in Nicaragua, they would have faced serious problems without extensive and probably unsustainable state support. Although cooperative employment has considerable potential, the Nicaraguan case highlights the need for new thinking on ways to resolve basic tensions between economic efficiency and worker participation. It also cast doubt on their viability as a development alternative for women, without specific attention to basic gender inequalities.
MAYOUX, L. (1993).
“Integration Is Not Enough: Gender Inequality and Empowerment in Nicaraguan Agricultural Cooperatives.” Development Policy Review 11(1): 67-90.
Nicaragua/ Latin America/
cooperatives/ gender/ empowerment/
Despite a very mixed record, cooperatives or cooperative-style organisations have continued to be seen as an important means whereby the poor can increase their productivity and incomes, and achieve more political strength. Cooperatives have often been promoted as the ideal type of project for women, combining possibilities for both income earning and consciousness-raising. More recently, in addition to women only cooperative projects there have been attempts to integrate women into wider cooperative movements, particularly in rural areas. Such integration has often been seen as a more radical solution, avoiding economic and political marginalisation. At the same time, it has often been supported by those opposed to the formation of separate 'feminist ' women's organisations.
This article discusses the experience of women in agricultural cooperatives in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas. It is based on research at the end of 1988, supplemented by information from the number of other sources. After the 1979 Sandinista revolution, considerable encouragement was given both to women's issues and co-operative development. Concurrently, there was widespread grass-roots mobilisation of women in support of the Revolution. In agricultural cooperatives a range of measures, including legislation, were taken to increase women's participation. Gender issues were ignored in wider co-operative policy, however, and the emphasis was on mobilising women for production rather than around broader 'feminists ' issues.
The Nicaraguan case suggests that women and men have different needs and priorities in cooperative development because of the division of labour and power structures in both the family and the wider society along gender lines. It is doubtful whether a focus on 'integrate' women into production within the established organisational framework could ever succeed in reaching all eligible women. Even for many of those who did become involved, the degree to which their integration constituted 'empowerment ' is a moot point. It is argued that co-operative structures and priorities need to change if they are to truly address women's needs and provide the necessary framework for their 'empowerment '. In particular, there is a need to address reproduction issues as an integral part of the organisation of cooperative work, and also to build structures to deal with inequalities within as well as between families. Importantly, these issues need to be taken into account in the formulation of overall cooperative policy, and not simply in the context of separate policies for women.
MAYOUX, L. (1995).
“Alternative Development or Utopian Fantasy: Women and Cooperative Development in India.” Journal of International Development 7(2): 211-228.
India/ West Bengal/ Tamil Nadu/
cooperatives/ gender/ micro-enterprise/
Particularly since the mid-1970s cooperatives have been seen as a way of countering the often appalling working conditions of women and exploitative rates of pay in the informal sector. Producer cooperatives, where women work together in a co-operative work shed outside the home, has been seen as having particular benefits because they challenge forms of female seclusion and the unequal household division of labour. However, although they have undoubtedly been some successes, failure has been, not confined to women only cooperatives. Committed proponents of cooperative development have pointed to shortcomings in funding, support structures and project implementation which can and should be rectified. Others have expressed scepticism about cooperatives as a serious development option for women, particularly poor and illiterate women i.e. the main target group for income generation and poverty alleviation programmes.
This article discusses research by the author on women in ten producer cooperatives in West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in India. These findings are supplemented by information from preliminary research by the author on a number of other cooperatives in which women were involved and secondary sources. The research indicates that producer cooperatives for women can be successful if there are at least a few women with the necessary skills who are prepared to put in sufficient time and effort. Moreover, this can occur even without significant amounts of external support. However, many of the co-operative studied had failed to a taste in part because of lack of enthusiasm for co-operative working on the part of many of the women involved. It is argued that this cannot be dismissed simply as 'false consciousness ', but rather is a relatively realistic assessment of the potential problems involved in the producer co-operative model being promoted. At the same time, for the cases studied, there were arranged of unexplored ways in which other types of co-operation could have been developed to respond more directly to the economic context and to the needs of the women concerned.
It is argued that are far more wide-ranging debate is needed about ways in which the ideals of co-operation and empowerment can be preserved while at the same time responding to the context in which cooperatives have to operate. It is clear that there is no blueprint of an 'ideal co-operative 'but a range of possible co-operative options which may be useful in particular economic and market contexts, and for particular women. In order to respond to the very varying needs of the women involved, there is a need for a participatory transformation of both state and NGO co-operative development agencies. At the same time much greater commitment is needed to assist women in negotiating change in gender/ inequalities in ways which they themselves see as relevant and important. The final section discusses the wider implications of the Indian case and suggest some of the many possible ways forward.
MAYOUX, L., Ed. (1988).
All Are Not Equal: African Women in Cooperatives.
London, Institute for African Alternatives.
Africa/
cooperatives/ gender/
Cooperatives have been widely advocated as a preferred means of development for women by national governments, international agencies, NGOs and feminists. They are seen as important for the wider mobilisation conscientisation of women, and increasing women's income through the elimination of intermediaries. However, as the papers presented here clearly demonstrate, the cooperative movement in many countries have not included women on equal terms with men, despite the stated aims of quality and democracy of the cooperative movement. Much cooperative development aimed specifically women has been in the form of isolated projects which have not been integrated into mainstream economic development. There have been a number of undoubted success stories, and even more cases were also cooperatives have eventually failed they have succeeded in raising women's consciousness and improved their ability to participate in decision-making in the wider society. However it must be admitted that large numbers had been unsuccessful, or at least have had serious problems.
The conference on which these volumes based brought together activists in the cooperative movement and academics from both Africa and the UK in an attempt to clarify some of the issues and arrive at some concrete policy proposals the government, international agencies, non-governmental organisations and the wider women's movement.
MAYOUX, L. (2002)
Women's Empowerment or Feminisation of Debt? Towards a New Agenda in Microfinance
One World Action London
http://www.oneworldaction.org/genderandmicrofinance.html
Africa/
micro-finance/ empowerment/
Microfinance programmes targeting women have been promoted as a key strategy for simultaneously addressing the poverty reduction and women's empowerment. There are now many microfinance programmes in Africa targeting women. However an increasing body of evidence suggests that the contribution of current microfinance programmes to women's empowerment is generally less than assumed. Assumptions that any 'trickle up' from financially sustainable microfinance in itself will be sufficient to bridge the gap left in 'trickle-down' from macro economic policies are misplaced. To the contrary there are serious dangers that microfinance governed solely by financial sustainability concerns will further disadvantage the very poor who are excluded from such programmes without any alternative safety nets. Female targeting without adequate support networks and empowerment strategies may merely shift all the burden of household debt and household subsistence onto women. This has adverse implications not only for women themselves, but also for children and the men's role in the household and society.
The aim of the conference on which this report was based was to explore elements of a new agenda for microfinance which would make the development goals of poverty elimination and women's empowerment central to program vision, design, implementation and evaluation.
Part 1 of the report argues that poverty elimination cannot be achieved without a commitment to women's empowerment, as stated in the official commitments and international agreements on gender signed by both African governments and aid agencies. It discusses evidence of the considerable potential of microfinance in Africa. But it also questions assumptions of any automatic beneficial impact of microfinance per se on either poverty reduction or women's empowerment.
Part 2 questions the appropriateness of many aspects of currently accepted 'best practice 'in the light of this evidence. It discusses alternative strategies which could have a greater contribution to poverty reduction and women's empowerment based on experience of programmes participating in the conference.
Part 3 summarises the conclusions and discusses ways of mainstreaming this new agenda within microfinance. It also points to issues for advocacy and lobbying to create an enabling environment for women to use microfinance for poverty reduction and empowerment.
The Appendix gives a Checklist for Action.
MAYOUX, L. (2001).
“Tackling the Down Side : Social Capital, Women's Empowerment and Micro-Finance, in Cameroon.” Development and Change 32(3): 435-464.
Cameroon/
micro-finance/ empowerment/social capital/ gender/ ROSCAs/
Micro-finance programmes are currently promoted by multilateral and bilateral donor agencies as a means of inserting poverty alleviation and empowerment objectives into the dominant development objective of market-led growth. Current policy in many donor agencies, particularly members of CGAP, and much of the official literature from the Micro-credit Summit is dominated by the 'financial self-sustainability paradigm'. Within this paradigm women's participation in groups is promoted as a key means of increasing financial sustainability and poverty targeting through drawing on 'social capital', while at the same time being assumed to empower women through automatically strengthening this social capital. However, the primary rationale of financial sustainability means there is little support for actively developing 'social capital', either in terms of collective economic activity to increase incomes or organization to enable women to challenge gender subordination.
This optimism about the intrinsic simultaneous benefits of social capital to both microfinance programmes and women themselves ignores questions raised about networks and collective action in current critical literature on social capital as well as earlier critiques of participatory development. Recent research has questioned the degree to which reliance on social capital necessarily enhances financial sustainability and poverty targeting. Importantly, there are gender dimensions to the debate which need further clarification. Recent research in Bangladesh and elsewhere has questioned any automatic benefits of micro-finance for women and also pointed to the potentially negative impact of the ways in which current policies for financial sustainability are being implemented.
It is clear that the interrelationships between social capital, empowerment and sustainability are extremely complex. As a preliminary to more comprehensive comparative discussion, this article examines the experience of seven micro-finance programmes in Cameroon. These programmes all place considerable reliance on client networks and voluntary input for loan disbursal and recovery, but follow different models of micro-finance and have different approaches to gender policy. The evidence indicates that microfinance programmes which build social capital can indeed make a significant contribution to women's empowerment. However, serious questions need to be asked about what sorts of norms, networks and associations are to be promoted, in whose interests, and how they can best contribute to empowerment, particularly for the poorest women.
MAYOUX, L. (2001)
Women's Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: Implications for Impact Assessment
http://www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/approaches/tsp/povelimempowerwomen.shtml
empowerment/impact assessment/ gender/
Women's empowerment means more than simply marginal increases in incomes but requires a transformation of power relations. This paper argues that, following DFID's definition of empowerment in its Target Strategy Paper 'Poverty Reduction and the Empowerment of Women' this means that enterprise development must take into account not only income levels, but also:
· Aim to empower women. This requires going beyond income generation and provision of low-paid and part-time work. In many cases this merely serves to reinforce existing inequalities. It is essential to address both micro level and macro level inequalities in order to enable women to exercise choice and fulfil their potential.
· Ensure equality
of opportunity through mainstreaming women’s
empowerment and gender/ equality in all enterprise
policy. It is essential to women's human rights/ that
they have equal access to all enterprise interventions
and equal treatment in all enterprise policy, not just
female-targeted micro-enterprise programmes.
· Ensure equity of outcomes through rethinking mainstream enterprise development to ensure empowerment and redress gender/ inequalities. This requires new thinking about the relationship between productive and reproductive roles, priority stakeholders in enterprise development and how power relations can be addressed at all levels.
The paper discusses the implications of the for impact assessment, methodology: for indicators. stakeholder analysis and the assessment process itself.
MAYOUX, L. (2001)
Micro-Finance for Women's Empowerment: A Participatory Learning, Management and Action Approach
http://www.alternative-finance.org.uk/cgi-bin/summary.pl?id=185&language=E
micro-finance/ empowerment/
Micro-finance programmes targeting women became a major plank of donor poverty alleviation and gender strategies in the 1990s. Funding is set to further increase under current initiatives by CGAP and member donor agencies. This expansion is dominated by Guidelines for Best Practice informed by the 'financial self-sustainability paradigm' of micro-finance, aimed at developing programmes which will ultimately be independent of donor funds. Literature prepared for the Micro-credit Summit in Washington in February 1997, many donor statements on credit and NGO funding proposals present an extremely attractive vision of increasing numbers of expanding, financially self-sustainable micro-finance programmes reaching and empowering large numbers of poor women borrowers.
This paper argues that there is a need for a serious rethink of many currently accepted 'tenets of Best Practice' in the light of existing evidence of gender impact. The paper is based on secondary sources and the author's preliminary research on programmes in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The paper advocates a new 'participatory approach ' where aims and strategies for women's empowerment are mainstreamed rather than marginal add-ons to programmes designed for financial sustainability or poverty alleviation. The approach proposed builds on ideas and methodologies currently being developed within all three paradigms, but particularly the feminist empowerment paradigm. Ensuring flexibility to women's own aspirations and strategies, contextual and organisational constraints will require participatory processes for programme learning, management and action. The approach goes beyond using women's time and resources for programme efficiency or community development to building on women's participation for fundamental change in gender relations. Importantly this will also require the participation of men in the process of change. In many organisations it will require changes in organisational culture and structure. Finally developing the approach will require a change in donor priorities. However, unless these changes are made, microfinance will fail to realise its full potential as a useful part of a holistic agenda for empowerment and poverty eradication.
MAYOUX, L. C. (2002)
Women's Empowerment and Microfinance: A Concept Paper for the Microfinance Field. Paper Presented to the Microcredit Summit +5.
UNIFEM New York
micro-finance/ gender/ empowerment
There is clearly an important role for microfinance
to play in the ‘empowerment’ of women. However, there remains much debate over exactly what this role should look like, as well as over exactly what is meant by the concept of ‘women’s empowerment.’ Much of the debate centers on the perceived tradeoffs between women’s empowerment efforts and organizational financial sustainability. Many microfinance institutions (MFIs) struggle with if and how they should incorporate empowerment strategies in their organizations in light of these perceived tradeoffs. Recent trends in donor funding away from organizations that place primary emphasis on women’s
empowerment and toward organizations focused on achieving
financial sustainability have created added skepticism
around the value of adopting empowerment approaches
in microfinance institutions.
This paper challenges leaders in the microfinance field
to look beyond these debates and trends and consider
adopting new ‘participatory approaches’ to empowerment that will allow MFIs to create fundamental changes in gender relations while minimizing conflict with financial sustainability aims. It also encourages MFIs to ‘rethink’ many
of the current program services in order to make them
more empowering to women. Moreover, the paper presents
a compelling case for why strategically planning for empowerment approaches is so crucial in the context of a microfinance sector where more and more practitioners are becoming complacent toward empowerment under the assumption that microfinance practices automatically produce significant empowerment benefits for women. By challenging this assumption and highlighting the other benefits of empowerment approaches, this paper hopes to move both practitioners and donors to take action toward adopting and encouraging new empowerment approaches in microfinance institutions.
The paper is divided into four sections:
· Section I provides
readers with an overview of three contrasting approaches,
or ‘paradigms,’ related to empowerment
in microfinance, as the tensions between these approaches
raise crucial questions regarding the adoption of empowerment
approaches in microfinance institutions.
· Section II addresses key reasons why leaders in the microfinance field should consider strategically planning for and adopting these empowerment approaches in microfinance institutions.
· Section III summarizes
different types of empowerment strategies microfinance
institutions should consider adopting, including ‘participatory approaches’ as well as program-related empowerment strategies that force MFIs to ‘rethink’ many
of their current practices and policies.
· Section IV outlines
some specific ‘proposals for action’ for
both microfinance practitioners and donors in light
of the growing neglect of empowerment strategies in
microfinance.
MAYOUX, L. (2004)
Intra-Household Impact Assessment: Issues and Participatory Tools
http://www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/informationresources/toolbox/intra-householdIA.shtml
household/ gender/ PALS/
Many impact assessments attempt to collect data only at the household level. This is true of most donor and government poverty assessments. Justifications for the focus on the household have varied. On the one hand it is asserted that looking at intra-household processes is too complex for the limited budgets and skills of practitioners and programmes. On the other there is a lot of resistance from practitioners on the grounds that asking such questions is socially divisive.
However, although household-level analysis may appear to have an intuitive and universal basis, it ignores the realities of interpersonal relations in many cultures and contexts. Theoretical literature, empirical research and methodological advances has increasingly demonstrated that any attempt to extrapolate from household data to individuals is highly misleading. Moreover intrahousehold inequalities have implications not only for individual-level assessment, but also for the accuracy of household-level data and also for aggregate levels of poverty. Understanding intra-household inequalities is not only of academic importance in terms of the rigour and accuracy of assessment findings. It is also of practical policy importance. It is important therefore that impact assessments look not only at impacts at an aggregate household or enterprise level, but on individuals and relations within the household. Moreover impacts on intra-household relations are often of themselves the subject of impact assessment, not only in terms of gender/ but also other dimensions of intra-household discrimination such as age (children and elderly).
At the same time intra-household assessment poses many challenges. There is wide cultural, and also individual, variation in what 'households' are, what they are supposed to do, what they actually do and possible strategies for change in inequality. This paper for the EDIAIS website attempts to address some of these issues.
Part 1 gives an overview of the main debates, evidence and key challenges for intrahousehold assessment.
Part 2 proposes an integrated participatory, qualitative and quantitative methodology for looking at one specific dimension: intra-household economic decision-making.
Part 3 looks at some of the implications for other dimensions of intra-household difference and inequality and particularly at how 'extractive' investigation can form the basis for ongoing action learning by communities and practitioners.
MAYOUX, L. (2004)
Anandi: Participatory Review December 2003
ANANDI Baroda
http://www.anandiindia.org
PALS/ gender/ empowerment/ basic needs/
This document is the outcome of a participatory review
process conducted with ANANDI staff, mandal members
and partner NGOs and funded by Concern Worldwide, India.
The document summarises the author's conclusions about
the effectiveness of ANANDI's innovative approach to
women's empowerment and to give suggestions for further
innovation in relation to ANANDI’s goals. Much
of the time during the Review was spent conducting
a series of participatory exercises with mandal members
in Saurashtra and Devgadh Baria. The participatory
exercises proved very effective in rapidly obtaining
both complex and sensitive information. Topics covered
were: general dimensions of women's empowerment, poverty
targeting of ANANDI assistance, gender/ violence, food
security and organizational development.
It was clear, even from the brief time spent with the
women in the field, that ANANDI's activities have had
both a significant and a sustainable contribution to
changing gender/ inequalities and building women's
own capacities for collective action. It is clear also
that ANANDI's model and experience has many important
implications for empowerment interventions elsewhere.
It clearly indicates the developmental effectiveness
and sustainability of a model focusing on women’s empowerment as the basis not only for addressing women’s
own individual and collective needs, but also those
of their families and communities. Some of the implications
for wider debates are discussed in the final section.