MAYOUX, L., Ed. (2003).
Sustainable Learning for Women's Empowerment: Ways Forward in Micro-Finance,.
New Delhi, Samskriti.
India/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ ILS/ training/ micro-enterprise/
PALS/ silk/ gender training/
An essential component of improving the contribution
of micro-finance to women's empowerment are systems
and structures for learning involving women themselves,
programmes and donors/. This must go beyond the current
enthusiasm for impact assessment, even participatory
impact assessment. It must be based on the priorities
and needs of women, linking these into programme
level learning and also to donor policy formation.
This book brings together papers by activists and
academics contributed to an inception workshop titled "Participatory Learning For Women's Empowerment: Towards An Integrated Methodology" organized by PRADAN on September 12 & 13,
2001. The book proposes a framework for sustainable
learning which will in itself be empowering, and
discusses the continuing challenges which will inevitably
have to be faced. It is argued that there is a need
for an integrated and strategic participatory methodology
to strengthen self-help groups as an organizational
structure. This methodology will enable women to:
· identify and
develop their own individual and collective empowerment
objectives
· identify their
strategic learning needs in relation to these objectives
in particular
· ways of increasing
income levels and livelihood sustainability from
enterprise and other income-earning activities. This
includes identification of a diverse range of economic
activities, improving production, analyzing and addressing
problems in markets
· strategies for
overcoming gender/ constraints and maximizing opportunities
at the individual, household, community and macro-levels,
including access to and control over productive resources
and markets and freedom from violence.
· document in visual
and simple written form the group and individual
learning so that it can contribute to a cumulative
process of empowerment within the groups, for individual
women and within NGOs as a whole.
· translate learning
into collaborative action (with both women and men)
at different points in the production and marketing
chain and in overcoming gender/ and poverty constraints.
This includes identification of individual and collective
actions, areas for working with men and strategic
points of external support from NGOs.
CONTENTS
PREFACE Nelleke Van der Vleuten, ICCO
PART 1: WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT AND Micro-finance,
Sustainable learning for women's empowerment: the
aims of this book Linda Mayoux
Women's empowerment, participation and Micro-finance,:
issues, evidence and ways forward, Linda Mayoux
Participatory Learning Systems for Self Help Groups
in PRADAN, D Narendranath
PART 2: PARTICIPATORY LEARNING: SYSTEMS, STRUCTURES
AND PRACTICAL TOOLS
The Internal Learning System: impact assessment,
versus Empowerment? Helzi Noponen
PLA, and gender/ impact assessment, Ranjani Krishna
Murthy
Daring to Dream, Jui Gupta
Learning about Women's Access and Control, Dhrubaa
Mukhopadhyay
Participate and Evaluate: participatory group evaluation,
Sukanta Sarkar
We shall let our fears go and bring in strength:
women's networking in Gujarat, Sejal Dand
PART 3: LEARNING FOR EMPOWERMENT: INNOVATIONS AND
CHALLENGES
Gender/ training: a review of experience, Ranjani
Krishna Murthy
'Only Wicked Women go to market!' issues in participatory
enterprise training, Frances Sinha
Product to Market assessment: the experience of Udyogini,
Vanita Viswanath
You Are the Owner of Your Own Destiny! Unleashing
the Achievement Syndrome in Self-help Groups, Rita
Sengupta
Literacy as empowerment: the experience of REFLECT
Madhusudhan, S Seetha Lakshmi, Sagari Ramdas, Rajamma
and Linda Mayoux
PART 4: SUSTAINABLE LEARNING FOR WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT:
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
Sustainable Learning or Women's Empowerment: A Framework,
Linda Mayoux
Gender Action Checklist, Linda Mayoux
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. (2002).
Women's Empowerment and Participation in Micro-Finance:
Evidence, Issues and Ways Ahead.
Sustainable Learning for Women's Empowerment: Ways Forward in Micro-Finance.
L. Mayoux. New Delhi, Samkriti.
http://www.oneworldaction.org/genderandmicrofinance.html#africa
India/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ participation/
In India poverty-focused bank lending programmes
has existed since the 1950s. Credit facilities for
women were pioneered by SEWA founded in 1974, followed
by other organizations, including Working Women's
Forum. Microfinance services were part of a broader
strategy including unionisation, cooperative formation
and mobilizing around gender issues like dowry as
part of the wider women's movement. Following the
widely publicised success of these organisations,
and particularly an expansion of formal sector programmes
for women and expansion in funding, many other programmes
were started by existing NGOs. These organizations
were also instrumental in bringing about significant
changes in the formal financial sector in India,
including the introduction of a range of loan programes
targeting women like the DWCRA programme introduced
in 1985, and quotas for women under the IRDP programme.
The Indian government has formulated several schemes
to support savings and credit programmes initiated
by NGOs, through NABARD, RMK and SIDBI .
This paper discusses the degree to which women have
benefitted from these programmes. Evidence indicates
although micro-finance programmes do potentially
have a significant contribution to women's empowerment,
this is not an automatic consequence of women's access
to savings and credit or group formation per se.
In many cases benefits may be marginal and women
may even be disempowered.
This paper argues that there is a need for 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. Some critical
elements of an empowerment strategy can to some extent
be incorporated into a range of different types of
programme. However 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. (2002)
Self-Help Development Foundation
http:///www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/informationresources/casestudies/shdfZimbabwe.shtml
Zimbabwe/
impact assessment/ micro-finance/ empowerment/ programme
Case Study/ savings/ gender/ entrepreneur Case Study/
Self-Help Development Foundation (SHDF) is a large
women-targeted savings-based programme which grew
out of the Savings Development Movement started by
a Jesuit priest, Brother Waddelove, in 1963. In 1996 donor
funding enabled a credit component to be added and
this has rapidly expanded. The range of training
components has also increased. SHDF aims to become
a financially sustainable and independent financial
institution with a separately-funded training wing.
There have been a number of impact and research studies
of SHDF. Despite its undoubted success in expanding
its services, these studies highlight a number of
difficult challenges for SHDF in combining financial
sustainability and poverty reach. These are due to
a combination of SHDF methodology, the macro-level
economic crisis in Zimbabwe and continuing legal
constraints on SHDF's ability to build up a savings
base. The studies also highlight the numerous cultural
constraints on women's autonomy and control over
resources which compound a difficult economic environment
of high inflation and recession to seriously limit
women savings capacity and their ability to utilise
loans. Women use a range of formal and informal savings
facilities in which SHDF savings and loans play a
useful but limited role. Project management training
has been useful, but limited to a one-off event with
insufficient follow-up. Although the Savings Clubs
provide a good organizational base for addressing
some of the problems women face, these possibilities
have not so far been taken full advantage of by SHDF.
Some of the practical implications of these findings
are discussed in the final section.
Existing impact studies also highlight some inherent
methodological challenges for impact assessment,.
There are numerous discrepancies in the findings
between studies and it is unclear which of these
are due to methodological differences and shortcomings
or to actual changes over time. As elsewhere, assessing
levels of poverty and impact on incomes at both household
level and for individual women. At the same time,
the studies point to ways in which impact on intra
household relations and empowerment can be assessed
and even quantified, at least in the Zimbabwe context.
Questionnaires and case studies from two of the assessments
are given in Appendices 3 and 4. The final section
suggests a framework for gender/ impact assessment,
based on this experience. It is however argued that
the need is now to move forward and ensure that any
future assessments focus much more on programme learning
and also contribute to learning processes between
women.
MAYOUX, L. (2002)
Gender Dimensions of Micro-Insurance: Questioning
the New Bootstraps??
micro-insurance/ micro-finance/ gender/
Micro-finance has been promoted as a key strategy
for poverty reduction. It is seen as the ideal self-help
strategy whereby poor people can help themselves
through productive use of loans and savings. Through
their own efforts therefore they are see to be able
to pull themselves up out of poverty. Since the end
of the 1990s an increasing number of microfinance
institutions have been trying to develop insurance
products for their clients to reduce this risk including:
· health and life
insurance
· livestock and
crop insurance
· property insurance
· compulsory insurance
against loan defaults
SEWA in India has pioneered provision of micro insurance
to its members. BRAC’s Grameen Kalyan (Welfare) has been implementing a health program based on a combination of insurance premiums and co-payments made at the time of receiving treatment. In
some contexts indigenous mechanisms for informal
insurance exist. The ILO’s Social
Finance Unit, supported by the World Bank, is creating
an experimental reinsurance scheme for community-based
health insurance schemes.
Micro-finance clients are however particularly vulnerable
to a range of risks. These not only threaten the
livelihoods and wellbeing of clients but also affect
loan repayment and savings deposits and hence the
sustainability of micro-finance programmes. This
paper argues that serious questions need to be asked
about whose interests current approaches to micro-
insurance serve. Debates also have gender dimensions
which have hitherto been ignored although women are
often key target groups for micro insurance schemes.
MAYOUX, L., M. JIRI and M. CERQUEIRA (2002)
Sustainable Livelihoods Project: Microfinance for
Urban Poverty Reduction in Angola
One World Action London??
Angola/ Africa/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ programmeCaseStudy/ financial
sustainability/
Sustainable Livelihoods Project in Luanda, Angola
is a poverty-targeted microfinance programme with
the underlying goal of poverty reduction through
developing sustainable businesses of clients. Poverty
reduction is defined not only in terms of increased
incomes but also quality of life, increasing self-esteem,
strengthening community-based leadership and solidarity.
Particular, but not exclusive attention, is given
to encouraging women's participation and women's
leadership and developing ways of translating access
to microfinance into empowerment as well as improved
well-being for women and their families. The programme
aims ultimately to be financially self-sustaining
in order to continually expand its out reach to significant
numbers of poor and disadvantaged people in different
parts of Angola.
The paper argues that the next phase of SLP has potential
to build a sustainable model for developmental microfinance.
This goes further concerns only with provision financially
sustainable microfinance services, to focus on building
sustainable livelihoods. This does not mean adding
on many layers of different types of intervention.
Nor does it mean compromising the focus on cost-effective
and sustainable microfinance. Rather it requires:
· building on the
aspirations and initiatives of clients to identify
the range of development contributions which microfinance
could make
· designing microfinance
products to better achieve these goals
· integrating gender
awareness and leadership skills throughout existing
training
· facilitating
groups to be sustainable forum for information exchange,
collective action and linking with other organisations
· raising broader
development issues in microfinance and business advocacy
to ensure that the interests of very poor people,
including women, are adequately represented in policy
change.
This will require the funders of SLP to move beyond
the current sole pre-occupation with financial sustainability
and give the programme the necessary support to enable
them to develop viable and cost-effective products
and methods for delivery of developmental microfinance.
MAYOUX, L. (2002)
Fighting against the Odds: Mbonweh Women's Development
Association in Cameroon.??
Cameroon/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ programmeCaseStudy/ financial
sustainability/ poverty/
Mbonweh Women's Development Association is a self-managed
women's organisation in the South of Cameroon's South-West
Province around the ports and urban centres of Limbe
and Buea. Its organization is based on the women's
wings of Church-based Family Meetings formed by migrants
when they migrated from the more remote rural areas
of Northern South West Province. In June 1998 there
were a total of about 260 registered members in 20
registered groups and a revolving capital fund of
over CFA 30.000.000. The programme had 100% repayment
and was 100% financially self-sustainable. The association
is very dynamic, with a firm commitment to women's
empowerment and its basis in existing women's groups
gives it a strong basis for collaboration and mutual
assistance between members. Extremely poor women
were being assisted by the organization to develop
livelihoods.
However, the lack of outside funding creates serious
problems for expansion and also for poverty-targeting.
The paper argues that there is an urgent need for
donors to give more support to smaller initiatives
of this sort based on women's own ingenuity and determination.
MAYOUX, L. and R. OSMAN (2002)
Financial Self-Sustainability Versus Empowerment?
Ways Forward for Gender, Policy in the Port Sudan
Programme.?? LEAP
Sudan/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ financial sustainability/
gender
PASED (Port Sudan Association for Small-scale Enterprise
Development) is a legally independent Sudanese NGO
which developed from ACORD Small Scale Enterprise
Programme. The ACORD Programme started operating
in Port Sudan in 1984. Since the late 1980s the programme
has had a gender policy to increase women's participation
at all levels of programme with explicit focus on
gender/ awareness and women's rights. From 1994 the
programme has adopted a minimalist financial systems
approach to micro-finance. By the end of its first
year as an independent entity in 2001 the programme
performed well both in terms of outreach and financial
sustainability. The programme as a whole has 86%
repayment rate and women repayment rates reached
almost 90%.
This paper discusses the contribution the programme
has made towards women's empowerment and the effects
of the policies introduced for financial sustainability.
The PASED experience indicates that where both clients
and staff are dedicated to empowerment goals then
much can be achieved, even within the rigours of
financial sustainability constraints. Communities
have gained access to new and improved services.
Women have experience improvements in their social
as well as economic status. Nevertheless tensions
exist and there are serious questions to be asked
about whether even more could not be achieved in
a cost-effective manner if empowerment concerns were
taken directly into consideration in policy design.
There also remains a need for sufficient funding
for development and refinement of gender policy and
non-financial services on an ongoing basis in order
to ensure that women are able to significantly improve
incomes and their position in society.
MAYOUX, L. and A. SIMANOWITZ (2002)
Participatory Monitoring for Poverty Reduction and
Women's Empowerment: Small Enterprise Foundation,
South Africa.??
South Africa/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ participatory methods/
participatory monitoring and evaluation/ programmeCaseStudy/
povery targeting/ financial sustainability/
The Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF) was set up
in 1992 as a micro-finance programme in the impoverished
former homeland areas of the Northern Province, South
Africa. It uses a group-based methodology, modelled
on the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In 1996 in response
to evidence that its Micro-credit Programme (MCP)
was not reaching the poorest it set up the Tshomisano
Credit Project (TCP) explicitly targeting the poorest
in the communities where it was working. SEF, and
particularly the TCP project is attempting to combine
a commitment to targeting the poorest, poverty alleviation
and financial sustainability. TCP has always been
a women-only program. The programme also has a commitment
to client participation to increase programme cost-effectiveness
and increase programme contribution to empowerment.
A particularly innovative methodology for integrating
impact monitoring into programme learning was started
in 1997 supported by USAID and Ford Foundation. The
programme is seen by many donor agencies as a model
case of good practice in combining financial sustainability,
poverty alleviation and female-targeting.
SEF undoubtedly represents an important model of
micro-finance delivery reaching very poor women and
demonstrates the feasibility of a woman-focused programme
combining poverty targeting, contribution to member
livelihoods with financial sustainability over a
period of time. However SEF's experience also highlights
some inherent tensions between financial sustainability
and poverty alleviation aims which need to be acknowledged
and addressed by both programmes themselves and by
donors. In SEF's case it is the focus on participation
and mutual learning as a cost-effective means of
increasing contribution to client incomes and also
to social empowerment which enable it to manage these
tensions to some extent and ensure that the benefits
to members outweigh any costs. The innovative approach
to impact monitoring has led to changes in the programme
to increase the benefits to members. This impact
monitoring system has considerable potential for
replication elsewhere in suitable institutional environments
where there are good relations between staff and
clients, a sincere organisational commitment to programme
learning and sufficient funds for training of staff
to initiate it.
MAYOUX, L. and J.-P. LACOSTE (2002)
Savings, Credit and Women's Empowerment: Potential
and Reality in Self-Help Development Foundation,
Zimbabwe??
Zimbabwe/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ savings/ programme Case
Study/ entrepreneur Case Study/
Self-Help Development Foundation (SHDF) is a large
women-targeted savings-based programme which grew
out of the Savings Development Movement started in
1963. In 1996 donor funding enabled a credit component
to be added and this has rapidly expanded. The range
of training components has also increased. SHDF aims
to become a financially sustainable and independent
financial institution with a separately-funded training
wing.
There have been a number of impact and research studies
of SHDF. These studies highlight the range of services
which women use to address their various savings
and credit needs. They also point to a number of
difficult challenges for SHDF in combining financial
sustainability, poverty reach and women's empowerment.
Achieving financial sustainability is very difficult
in the Zimbabwe context because of the macro-level
economic crisis and continuing legal constraints
on SHDF's ability to build up a savings base. This
means that SHDF has no spare capacity to counter
inherent biases in the methodology against reaching
the very poor or to increase programme contribution
to empowerment. The studies also highlight the numerous
cultural constraints on women's autonomy and control
over resources. These compound a difficult economic
environment of high inflation and recession to seriously
limit women savings capacity and their ability to
profitably utilise loans. Project management training
has been useful, but limited to a one-off event with
insufficient follow-up. Although the Savings Clubs
potentially provide a good organizational base for
addressing some of the problems women face SHDF has
not so far been able to take advantage of these.
MAYOUX, L. (2002)
Integrating Gender in Micro-Finance: Community Development
Centre (Codec) Bangladesh??
Bangladesh/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ programme Case Study/
The Community Development Centre (CODEC) is an NGO
which started in Chittagong in 1975 as a DANIDA-funded
project to rehabilitate coastal fishing communities
following the devastating cyclone of 1970. The program
works with fishworker communities and other very
poor households in neighbouring communities in four
districts of Bangladesh: Chittagong, Laxmipur, Patuakhali
and Barguna. The core activity of the programme is
the formation of village organisations, with savings
and credit as part of an integrated programme together
with training and advocacy, education and health.
CODEC's micro-finance programme is currently one
of the ten largest programmes in Bangladesh. By 1998
CODEC had organized 604 female organizations with
17,492 members and 588 male organization with 17,738
members and (CODEC 1998). Loan recovery for short-term
loans to both women and men varies between 90 to
98 % depending on the district. By 2000 the the programme
has attained financial sustainability of the loan
program. CODEC also has a gender policy.
This paper describes the CODEC programme and evidence
of contribution to women's empowerment. It is argued
that the CODEC experience highlights the cost-effectiveness
of integrating gender throughout policy and at different
levels of an organization. The views of its women
clients also challenge some of the now accepted 'Best
Practices' in loan conditions. The final section
identifies the broader implications for other mixed-sex
community-based organizations which aim to empower
women through micro-finance in an integrated development
programme.
MAYOUX, L. (2002).
Microfinanciamiento Para El Empoderamiento De Las Mujeres.
Programas Sostenibles de Microfinanciamiento para
el Empoderamiento de las Mujeres, Granada, Nicaragua
and La Paz, Bolivia, Finrural Bolivia, ITDG Alternative
Finance.
http://www.alternative-finance.org.uk/cgi-bin/summary.pl?id=186&language=S
Bolivia/
micro-finance/ empowerment
Este artículo argumenta que existe la necesidad de reflexionar seriamente sobre muchos de los corrientemente aceptados "dogmas de mejor práctica", dado que existe evidencia de que tienen un impacto sobre el género. El artículo está basado en fuentes secundarias y en una investigación preliminar realizada por la autora en Asia, África y América Latina. Se da una visión general de tres paradigmas contrastantes de "mejor práctica", así como también evidencia de los impactos sobre el género, antes de abogar a favor de un nuevo "perfil participativo". En su enfoque, las metas y estrategias del empoderamiento de la mujer son priorizadas en lugar de ser marginadas en agregados a programas diseñados para su sustentabilidad financiera o el alivio de la pobreza. Construye sobre ideas y metodologías que son corrientemente desarrolladas dentro de los tres paradigmas, pero en particular el de empoderamiento feminista. Se señala un nuevo enfoque y los cambios que serían necesarios, antes de concluir que sin esos cambios el micro'fianciamiento fracasaría en la realización de su potencial pleno como parte útil de una agenda holística para el empoderamiento y la erradicación
de la pobreza.
MAYOUX, L. (2002)
Credit and Savings Programme in Cam Xuyen, Vietnam??
Vietnam/
micro-finance/ empowerment/ programme Case Study/
The SCF-sponsored programme credit and savings programme
in Cam Xuyen District, Ha Tinh Province is a women-only
poverty-targeted programme implemented mainly in
partnership with the Vietnam Women's Union. It evolved
out of SCF's poverty alleviation programme in the
Province which began in 1989 supporting local partner
organizations to establish income generation activities
to increase income, decrease indebtedness, reduce
malnutrition, and promote food self-sufficiency.
By 1992 the SCF programme had expanded to 22 communes
where SCF provided financial, training and technical
support for a range of income-generating activities
based on in-kind credit . In June of 1993, following
an internal review in 1992, SCF launched a cash-based
credit and savings programme in Cam Xuyen district,
Ha Tinh province. In 1994 and 1995, similar programmes
were launched in Thanh Chuong district, Nghe An province
and then Thach Thanh district, Thanh Hoa province.
By 1996 the SCF-sponsored programme reached more
than 5,000 households in the three Provinces and
was one of the larger NGO credit and savings programmes
in Vietnam.
This paper looks at the evidence of gender impact
of the programme based on a number of impact studies
done by SCF. It concludes that although the programme
had been successful in improving the income and well-being
of individual households, the degree to which this
constituted 'empowerment' is debatable. Incomes continued
to be low. Changes in intra-household relations were
small as women were already involved in management
of the family finances. They were also already highly
mobile and involved in marketing as well as production.
The programme therefore strengthened rather than
changed existing roles. What the programme failed
to do was to make a significant change in men's roles
with the shift in burden of unpaid household work
onto children. There is also little discussion in
any of the reports of impact on gender inequalities
in rights to household expenditure, authority and
autonomy or questioning macro-level inequalities.
Action Aid and Oxfam gender impact assessments of
their programmes in the same area reach similar conclusions.
One of the main recommendations of the SCF and also
Oxfam and Action Aid reports is that there is a need
for much more focused attention to potential for
mutual learning between women and building up capacity
for collective action. The microfinance programmes
could be a considerable contribution to increasingly
participation in and strength of the VWU in campaigning
on gender/ issues, rather than becoming a substitute
for its former advocacy role.
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. C. (2001)
Impact Assessment of Microfinance: Towards a Sustainable
Learning Process
http:///www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/informationresources/application/microfinance.shtml
impact assessment/ PLA/ micro-finance/ poverty/ gender/
Impact assessment has received more attention in
microfinance than in any other area of enterprise
development. It is now generally accepted that impact
assessment is a critical element in further improving
micro-finance services and promoting innovation.
From a donor perspective impact assessment is necessary
to make informed funding decisions in the context
of increasing competition between different programmes,
many of whom are making ambitious claims of impact.
Impact assessment is also crucial to ensuring that
donor guidelines for Best Practice support rather
than undermine programme achievements in relation
to poverty reduction, empowerment and other development
aims.
Existing impact assessments have made an important
contribution to understanding some of the complex
interactions between microfinance interventions,
livelihoods and different dimensions of poverty reduction
and empowerment. There remains nevertheless a considerable
gap between the potential contribution of impact
assessment and the practical usefulness of existing
findings. This paper argues that the challenge for
impact assessment, is now to move on from merely
measuring impact of individual programmes on incomes
to developing ongoing and sustainable learning processes within
and between programmes, between programmes and donors/
and also between microfinance users.
There is currently rapid innovation in impact assessment,
methodologies in microfinance including practitioner-led impact assessment and grassroots learning processes. These
point the way to possibilities of a new and more
integrated sustainable learning process between different
stakeholders which can itself make an important contribution
to poverty reduction and empowerment.
MAYOUX, L. (2001).
Women's Empowerment Versus Sustainability? Towards
a New Paradigm in Micro-Finance, Programmes.
Women and Credit: Researching the Past, Refiguring the Future.
B. Lemire, R. Pearson and G. Campbell. Oxford, New
York, Berg: 245-270.
micro-finance/ empowerment
Since the 1990s, funding for micro-finance programs
targetting large numbers of women has increased dramatically
as a result of initiatives by the Collective Group
to Assist the Poorest (CGAP). Literature prepared
for the Micro-credit Summit in Washington, in February
1997, in combination with many donor statements on
credit and NGO funding proposals present an extremely
attractive vision of increasing numbers of expanding,
financially self-sustainable micro-finance programs
reaching large numbers of women borrowers and making
a significant contribution to global poverty alleviation
and women's empowerment. However some researchers
have questioned the degree to which micro-finance
services in fact benefit women. Some argue strongly
that current models of micro-finance, where the overriding
concern is financial sustainability, divert resources
from other more effective strategies for empowerment
and/or poverty alleviation. Current views regarding
the potential contribution of micro-finance programs
to women's empowerment fall into four main camps,
which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. These
camps cross-cut three distinct paradigms of micro-finance,
with differing interpretations of both empowerment
and sustainability.
This paper builds on Mayoux 1998, 1999 and examines
the complex inter-linkages between the various dimensions
of these differing interpretations. There are inherent
tensions between empowerment and the many policies
currently implemented to increase short-term financial
sustainability. However, evidence indicates that
ignoring empowerment concerns in program design,
as well as having potentially negative affects on
women, may prejudice financial sustainability itself.
The paper argues that a more strategic approach to
empowerment is needed, coupled with a wider and more
flexible approach to sustainability. First, this
would include clear prioritization of the interests
of clients / members and a more participatory approach
to program management. Next, it would require greater
attention to inter-organizational relationships and
contexts, considering all facets of micro-finance
interventions rather than taking a blue-print program
approach.
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.
URL: http://www.microfinancegateway.org/files/18143_Tackling_the_Down_Side_Cameroon_.pdf
MAYOUX, L. (2001).
“Microfinanciamiento Para El Empoderamiento De
Las Mujeres: Un Enfoque De Aprendizaje, Gestion Y Accion
Participativos.” El Mercado de Valores, Nafin, Mexico 3:
18-33.
http://www.alternative-finance.org.uk/cgi-bin/summary.pl?id=186&language=S
micro-finance/ empowerment/
Los programas de microfinanciamiento dirigidos a
las mujeres se convirtieron en una importante plataforma
para las estrategias de género y de alivio de la pobreza impulsadas por las organizaciones donantes en los años noventa. En este siglo se prevé un crecimiento adicional del financiamiento bajo las iniciativas del Grupo Consultivo de Ayuda a la Población Más Pobre (CGAP/) y de las agencias donantes miembros . Esta expansión está regida por las Directrices para la Mejor Práctica inspiradas en el "paradigma de la autosustentabilidad financiera" del microfinanciamiento que aspira a desarrollar programas que, en última instancia, serán independientes de los fondos de los donantes. En el material preparado para la Cumbre del Micro Crédito celebrada en Washington en febrero de 1997, muchas declaraciones de los donantes sobre el crédito y las propuestas de financiamiento de las Organizaciones No Gubernamentales (ONG) presentan un panorama muy atractivo con un creciente número de programas de microfinanciamiento autosustentables desde el punto de vista financiero que se están expandiendo para beneficio de un gran número de mujeres pobres que solicitan crédito. Mediante la contribución a la capacidad de las mujeres para generar un ingreso, se supone que estos programas inician una serie de "espirales virtuosas" de empoderamiento económico, incrementando el bienestar de las mujeres y de sus familias, así como el empoderamiento social y político más
amplio. No obstante lo anterior, hay un decrecimiento
en el financiamiento para los programas que colocan
en primer plano el alivio de la pobreza o el empoderamiento
de las mujeres.
En este documento se plantea que, a la luz de la
evidencia que existe en cuanto al impacto de género, es preciso volver a considerar seriamente muchos de los "principios de la mejor práctica" que actualmente se aceptan. El documento se basa en fuentes secundarias y en la investigación
preliminar de la autora sobre programas en Asia y
Africa .
En este trabajo se defiende un nuevo "enfoque participativo" donde los objetivos y las estrategias para el empoderamiento de las mujeres forman parte integral de los programas diseñados para la sustentabilidad financiera o el alivio de la pobreza, en lugar de ser agregados marginales de los mismos. El enfoque propuesto retoma las ideas y metodologías que actualmente se están
desarrollando dentro de los tres paradigmas, pero
en particular en el paradigma feminista del empoderamiento.
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. (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.
LANGBROEK, J., C. MEDAL and L. MAYOUX (2000).
Programas Sostenibles De Microfinanciamiento Para El Empoderamiento De Las Mujeres:
Pistas Para Una Buena Práctica
Granada, Nicaragua,18-21de Julio 2000.
Programas Sostenibles de Microfinanciamiento para
el Empoderamiento de las Mujeres:
Pistas para una Buena Práctica, Granada, Nicaragua,
Puntos de Encuentro.
http://www.oneworldaction.org/genderandmicrofinance.html#africa
Latin America/ Nicaragua/
micro-finance/ empowerment/
MAYOUX, L. (2000).
“From Access to Empowerment: Widening the Debate
on Gender, and Sustainable Micro-Finance,.” Austrian Journal of Development Studies XV1(3):
247-274.
micro-finance/ empowerment
This paper argues that although micro-finance programmes
do have a significant potential contribution to women's
empowerment, this is not an automatic consequence
of women's access to savings and credit alone. Empowerment
aims need to be explicitly prioritised and innovative
thinking is needed on how they can be achieved. It
discusses evidence on positive and negative interlinkages
between women's empowerment and policies currently
advocated and/or implemented to increase financial
sustainability. It focuses particularly on the author's
preliminary research and secondary sources on 10
programmes: Community Development Centre (CODEC)
in Bangladesh, Professional Assistance for Development
Action (PRADAN) in India, Zambuko Trust and Self-Help
Development Fund (SHDF) in Zimbabwe, Small Enterprise
Foundation (SEF) in South Africa, CARE-PULSE and
CARE-PROSPECT in Zambia and Cameroon Gatsby Trust
(CGT) and its partner organizations Mbonweh and CIPCRE
in Cameroon. It also draws on secondary sources and
discussions with staff from other programmes involved
in a series of regional workshops facilitated by
the author and staff in donor agencies .
Section 1 of the paper gives an overview of the development
and underlying assumptions of the financial self-sustainability
paradigm in relation to gender impact. Section 2
gives an overview of evidence from Africa and South
Asia which challenges many of the assumptions of
beneficial impacts of women's access to micro-finance
per se, reinforcing the concerns of earlier studies
in Bangladesh. Section 3 discusses some possible
cost-effective ways forward for making micro-finance
programmes more empowering for women based on this
evidence and some recent innovative initiatives.
Section 4 argues that there is a need to move away
from blueprints and to develop a range of types of
programme which address the needs of particular women,
particular contexts and particular strengths of the
organizations concerned. This will entail a more
participatory approach to programme management and
organizational learning in order to ensure contextual
relevance and prioritisation of the needs of members.
It will also require linking grassroots groups with
other movements for change in gender relations at
the micro-and macro-levels. Supporting a more participatory
empowerment approach will also involve a significant
shift in current donor priorities and procedures.
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. (1999).
Collective Strategies Reconsidered: Social Capital, Women's Empowerment and Sustainability in West African Micro-Finance Programmes.
NGOs in a Global Future, University of Birmingham.
PMN?
Cameroon/
social capital/ micro-finance/ gender/
MAYOUX, L. (1999)
From Access to Empowerment: Gender, Issues in Micro-Finance
Draft Position Paper Presented to Centre for Sustainable
Development Virtual Conference October 1999
http://www.gdrc.org/icm/wind/mayoux.html
micro-finance/ empowerment
Micro-finance, programmes targeting women have become
a major plank of donor poverty alleviation strategies
in the 1990s and funding is set to further increase
into the next century under initiatives by CGAP and
member donor agencies. This expansion is dominated
by the 'financial self-sustainability paradigm'.
The most detailed articulation of this paradigm is
given in Rhyne and Otero 1994, and echoed in publications
by USAID, DFID, World Bank, UNDP and increasingly
by other members of CGAP. This paradigm is also the
dominant inspiration behind the Micro-credit Summit
Campaign inaugurated in 1997. The ultimate aim is
programmes which are profitable and fully self-supporting
in competition with other private sector banking
institutions and able to raise funds from international
financial markets rather than relying on funds from
development agencies.
However evidence indicates that negative impacts
of programmes will be further reinforced by some
of the commonly agreed principles of financial sustainability
best practice currently being imposed by donors,
in particular high interest rates and service charges
to cover costs of delivery; rapid programme growth
to benefit from economies of scale; reducing staff
and staff costs through narrow focus on micro-finance;
reducing complementary services; use of 'voluntary'
contributions of clients and groups to identify eligible
borrowers, ensure repayment and decrease costs of
service delivery; failure to incorporate empowerment
indicators in Management Information Systems. These
limitations point to the widespread need for more
explicit measures to address gender subordination
both at the enterprise and household levels.
Innovative strategies in some programmes, including
some of those attempting to be more financially self-sustainable,
do point to cost-effective ways of addressing empowerment
issues. Elements of a gender policy would include:
conditions of micro-finance delivery to support empowerment;
cost-effective complementary services; institutional
mainstreaming of gender policy. Increasing impact
will require changes not only at programme and NGO
levels as indicated above, but crucially in donor
policy. Donors need to include empowerment concerns
in all funding guidelines, monitoring and evaluation
and programme support. This in turn will require
an approach to gender mainstreaming within donor
agencies themselves which goes beyond rhetorical
statements of intent in organizational mandates and
equal opportunities policies for staff. Finally micro-finance
itself can only make a marginal contribution to women's
empowerment and poverty alleviation without support
for women's grassroots movements explicitly addressing
gender inequality and mainstreaming the concerns
of poor women in all macro-level economic and social
policy.
MAYOUX, L. C. (1998)
Women's Empowerment and Micro-Finance Programmes:
Approaches, Evidence and Ways Forward
The Open University Milton Keynes
micro-finance/ gender/
MAYOUX, L. (1998).
“ Participatory Programme Learning for Women's
Empowerment in Micro-Finance Programmes: Negotiating
Complexity, Conflict and Change.” IDS Bulletin 29(4):
39-50.
micro-finance/ empowerment/impact assessment/ PLA/
This paper proposes a participatory approach for
integrating women’s empowerment concerns into
ongoing programme learning, seeing this itself as
a contribution to empowerment. The article:
· discusses “tricky issues” faced by policy- relevant research on women’s
empowerment
· outlines principles,
methods and elements of a participatory programme
learning approach
· lays out specific
analytical, methodological and ethical questions
to be asked
· proposes a framework
for analysing women’s empowerment and interrelationships
between different aspects of empowerment and policy
· looks at continuing
methodological and institutional challenges needing
to be addressed, including “assessment fatigue”
The paper describes steps to be taken in initiating,
developing and implementing a participatory approach,
and states their necessity for long-term sustainability
of micro-finance programmes.
MAYOUX, L. (1998)
Cameroon Gatsby Trust: Report and Business Plan
1999-2001
Cameroon Gatsby Trust Yaounde
Cameroon/
micro-finance/ gender/
MAYOUX, L. and M. DUURSMA (1998)
Sustainable Micro-Finance Programmes for Women's
Empowerment: Strategies and Models: Report of a
Training, Co-Learning and Issue Definition Workshop
for Southern Africa
Opportunity Trust/Hivos/The Open University Harare/Milton
Keynes
Zimbabwe/ South Africa/ Southern Africa
gender/ micro-finance/
MAYOUX, L. (1998).
L'empowerment Des Femmes Contre La Viabilite? Vers
Un Nouveau Paradigme Dans Les Programmes De Micro-Credit.
Les Silences Pudiques De L'economie Et Rapports Sociaux Entre Hommes Et Femmes.
Y. Preiswerk. Berne, Geneva, UNESCO, DDC, IUED.
micro-finance/ empowerment
MAYOUX, L. (1997).
Impact Assessment, and Women's Empowerment in Micro-Finance Programmes: Issues for a Participatory Learning and Action Approach.
CGAP virtual meeting on Impact Assessment of Micro-finance
Programmes, DFID.
micro-finance/ gender/ impact assessment/ PLA/
MAYOUX, L. and S. JOHNSON (1997).
Micro-Finance, and Women's Empowerment: Strategies for Increasing Impact: Report on East Africa Workshop.
Micro-finance, and Women's Empowerment: Strategies
for Increasing Impact, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Action
Aid-UK.
East Africa
micro-finance/ gender/ empowerment/
MAYOUX, L. E. (1997).
Micro-Finance and Women's Empowerment: Strategies for Increasing Impact: Report on Asian Workshop.
Micro-finance and Women's Empowerment: Strategies
for Increasing Impact, Bangalore, India, Action
Aid-UK.
Asia
micro-finance/ gender/ empowerment/
Conference Report DFID
OWUSU-GYAMFI, M., S. JOHNSON and L. MAYOUX (1997).
Micro-Finance and Women's Empowerment: Strategies for Increasing Impact: Report on West Africa Workshop.
Micro-finance and Women's Empowerment: Strategies
for Increasing Incomes, Tamale, Ghana, Action Aid
UK.
West Africa,
micro-finance/ gender/
MAYOUX, L. (1997).
The Magic Ingredient? Microfinance and Women's Empowerment.
Micro Credit Summit, Washington, Action Aid.
http://www.gdrc.org/icm/wind/magic.html
micro-finance/ empowerment/gender/
MAYOUX, L. and S. ANAND (1995).
Gender, Inequality, Revolving Credit Societies and
Sectoral Employment Strategies: Some Questions from
the South Indian Silk Industry.
Money-Go-Rounds: The Importance of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations for Women.
S. Ardener and S. Burman. Oxford and Washington
DC, Berg.
India/ Karnataka/
silk/ ROSCAs/ micro-finance/ gender/
This article discusses the potential role of Rotating
Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) in women's
employment strategies. It is based on research in
the silk reeling industry in Karnataka, India. Women,
including some silk reeling labourers, had begun
to join ROSCAs. These had a number of special features
which enabled women to increase their control over
resources in the household. First, the amounts of
money in cash which could be accumulated were large
relative to those normally available to women through
other formal and informal credit sources. Second,
unlike most bank credit available to women, there
were no predetermined strings attached to the use
of money. Furthermore the funds could be obtained
without the consent of other family members, provided
payment was satisfactory. The research found a number
of cases where ROSCAs had played an important role
in strengthening women's control over income even
in cases where men were spending much of their income
on alcohol and gambling and where women would otherwise
have had limited prospects of savings. At the same
time, the purpose of the ROSCAs was solely economic,
membership was secret rather than public and there
was no attempt to develop support networks.
If any development of these ROSCAs by outside agencies
as part of wider sectoral strategies were to take
place, a number of questions and potential problems
arise. First, would attempts to change the membership
composition to cover either women in general, or
particular categories of women, such as reeling
labourers, necessitate changes in their regulations,
and would result of their ability to respond to
women's economic needs? Second, can social and/or
consciousness-raising and/or educational activities
be added to such groups without reducing their economic
value? It is argued that such issues need to be
discussed with the women involved, covering all
the possible options. However, provided this is
done and women's ability to join the existing organisations
is not impaired, such development could be a valuable
part of wider policy for assisting women in the
silk industry, and also in other industries where
women have a reasonably stable and independent source
of income.