You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Gender’ tag.
> Posted by Center Staff
“We would not be here without the visionary work of the pioneers who came before us, especially the women leaders who fought to build the very first banks for women in countries with seemingly insurmountable barriers,” writes Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Women’s World Banking in the forward of a new online book, Celebrating Women Leaders: Profiles of Financial Inclusion Pioneers. The book shares the stories of 31 women leaders from around the world who made the financial inclusion landscape what it is today.
Those recognized in the book include practitioners, academics, researchers, regulators, thought leaders, financiers, and more. Among them, the industry’s earliest pioneers, like Ela Bhatt, founder of Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), as well as those who joined more recently, like Ruth Goodwin-Groen, Managing Director of the Better Than Cash Alliance, and Jennifer Riria, CEO of Kenya Women Holding. Full disclosure: of the 31 included in the book are also CFI leaders and partners, including Anne Hastings, Elisabeth Rhyne, Essma Ben Hamida, and Jayshree Vyas.
The book was the idea of Samit Ghosh, CEO and Founder of Ujjivan. Ujjivan and Women’s World Banking worked together on the project, with young women working in the sector researching, conducting interviews, and writing the leader profiles.
> Posted by Center Staff
The latest edition of the Financial Inclusion 2020 News Feed, our weekly online magazine sharing the big news in banking the unbanked, is now available. Among the stories in this week’s edition are: the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) released the 2015 AFI Global Policy Forum Report, distilling the happenings of the network’s largest and most diverse forum to date; new startup PayJoy is attempting to solve the financing problem surrounding the 2 billion individuals globally who have access to the internet but can’t afford a smartphone; The Guardian spotlights how mobile money supported healthcare workers during the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone. Here are a few more details:
- The 2015 AFI Global Policy Forum brought together over 500 senior financial inclusion policymakers, regulators, international organizations, and private sector partners in Maputo, Mozambique. Highlights from the forum include the adoption of the Maputo Accord, making SME finance a larger priority for the network, and sessions on green finance and gender.
- PayJoy, beginning an initial roll-out in California, is offering an alternative to the tech industry’s equivalent of payday lenders who charge upwards of 500 percent interest on loans to buy smartphones. PayJoy covers 80 percent of the cost of a phone at 50 to 100 percent interest, and if individuals aren’t able to make their monthly installments, the phone locks until the payment is received.
- In Sierra Leone, payment to healthcare workers combating Ebola was originally largely disbursed inefficiently in the form of cash, resulting in incidences of workers not being paid for months at a time, which caused disruptions to both healthcare and public trust in the system. NetHope, a consortium of NGOs working in IT, enrolled workers into an automated mobile money-based payment system using an open source facial recognition software.
For more information on these and other stories, read the latest issue of the FI2020 News Feed here. This is the final issue of the News Feed. Though if you have any stories or initiatives that you think we should cover on the blog or via our other social media channels, email your ideas to Jeffrey Riecke at .
> Posted by Center Staff
The latest edition of the Financial Inclusion 2020 News Feed, our weekly online magazine sharing the big news in banking the unbanked, is now available. Among the stories in this week’s edition are: Omidyar Network investing in eCurrency Mint, a company that has developed a new technology that enables central banks to issue digital fiat currency; FMO, the Dutch development bank, providing a five-year US$10 million loan to benefit VisionFund International’s MFIs in rural Africa; Tyler Wry, a professor of management at Wharton, discussing his research on how patriarchal power manifests itself in microfinance. Here are a few more details:
- Omidyar’s investment in eCurrency Mint was made through the firm’s Financial Inclusion Initiative. The digital fiat currency, called eCurrency, is issued by a central bank and has the same legal and monetary status as notes and coins – differentiating it from the various forms of private sector digital value available today.
- FMO’s investment in VisionFund International’s African MFI network will help support the growth of these institutions via debt capital. Additionally, FMO provided a US$275,000 capacity development grant to support VisionFund in creating an innovative approach to disaster resilient microfinance.
- In a video interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Wry discusses findings on gender and microfinance from his recent paper “Bringing Societal Institutions Back In: How Patriarchy Affects Social Outreach”. The baseline finding from the research is that when you have a high level of patriarchy in the state, in religion, in the professions, and in the family, it makes it harder for microfinance organizations to lend to them for a number of different reasons.
For more information on these and other stories, read the latest issue of the FI2020 News Feed here, and make sure to subscribe to the weekly online magazine by entering your email address in the right-hand menu so you can be notified when the latest issue comes out.
Have you come across a story or initiative you think we should cover? Email your ideas to Jeffrey Riecke at .
> Posted by Jessie Fisher and Robyn Robertson, Good Return
Globally 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty, with women and girls disproportionately affected. Increasing access to technology creates opportunities in education, expanded informational resources, employment, entrepreneurship, and financial services – all of which can help break the cycle of poverty.
These are not new or debated ideas. However, in the realm of financial services, in order to harness advancements in technology and achieve greater and more meaningful inclusion of women, we still need to better understand their preferences and behaviors and the social context they inhabit.
This is where quality gender-based data, which has almost entirely been lacking in financial inclusion, plays a key role.
For example, to ensure we understand a new market, we must ask ourselves questions like: Have we invested the time and resources needed to meaningfully engage with both men and women? Have we considered the time needed to build trust in these communities (especially if they have had disappointing experiences with other organizations in the past)?
Satisfying such considerations isn’t simple or easy. We may also need to travel further to reach women clients, and provide safe spaces for them to speak openly about their lives and the things they would like to change.
> Posted by Center Staff
A new paper from MasterCard corroborates recent findings on persistent gaps in the financial inclusion of women, indicating that in India 58 percent of women report difficulty accessing credit, savings, or jobs because of their gender. The paper is part of MasterCard’s Connectors Project, which examines the migration of excluded populations into progressive economic inclusion. The recently-released Global Findex data found that between 2011 and 2014, the gender gap in access to financial services remained steady at 9 percent in developing countries.
The reported difficulty faced by women in India was higher than that of the paper’s other surveyed countries: Indonesia, Egypt, and Mexico. Across all four countries, 33 percent of women expressed these challenges. Across all genders, in India, 67 percent of respondents reported worrying about money they owe to others and 82 percent worry about their future prospects. Along with women, ethnic and religious minorities in India reported additional challenges in economic participation. Fifty-eight percent said it was difficult to get jobs or credit because of their ethnicity or religion – compared with 28 percent across the surveyed countries. Whether or not these women and ethnic/religious minorities do in fact face discriminatory treatment, awareness of their perception is critical. In accessing banking services for the first time, or pursuing economic opportunities, trust and confidence can be a make-or-break.
> Posted by Center Staff
This edition of top picks features posts highlighting India’s financial inclusion progress and persisting gaps, how the deployment of digital financial systems requires strategic human capital management, and the state of the mobile money industry in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The proportion of adults in India with a bank account increased from 35 to 53 percent between 2011 and 2014, according to the recently-released Global Findex data. A new post on the IFMR LEAD blog shares the Findex findings for India, and outlines the ways in which financial inclusion in the country is still far from achieved. The post affirms that account ownership is just the first step towards inclusion, discussing account usage, gender disparity, and uptake of mobile services, among other topics.
> Posted by Joshua Goldstein aka Mr. Provocative
In The New York Times last week was a story of loss and despair titled “1.5 Million Missing Black Men”. It stated: “One out of every six black men, who today should be between 25 and 54 years old, have disappeared from daily life.” Where are these men? What does this mean to the women in their communities? The answer to the first question is that they often die early or are living out much of their lives behind bars. And the answer to the second question is equally tragic and heartbreaking: In many ravaged communities, there are not enough men to be fathers and husbands. In our republic, this reality of the missing men is a profound challenge to our values, our democracy, and our future as a nation. I think there is a consensus on that.
So, you ask me: What does this terrible set of facts about an American tragedy have to do with microfinance and international development? In my opinion, an awful lot. As policy makers and practitioners, it often seems that men have disappeared from our “interventions” and work plans. Resources are focused on empowering poor women, who will work hard and take care of the children (half of whom are boys), while the men are scoundrels or losers who cannot be counted on when it comes to the family’s well-being. Why prioritize men in poverty reduction strategies? Why waste resources on this failed sex?
> Posted by Center Staff
Happy International Women’s Day! We hope you were able to partake in the worldwide celebration yesterday. If you missed out on the action, not to fear. Plenty of activities are still underway. And of course, acknowledging the achievements of women and advancing the movement for gender equality are practices best executed every day.
To spotlight the importance of financial inclusion for women, here’s a snapshot of recent research in this area. To follow are ways that you can join groups, including the United Nations and Grameen Foundation in getting involved.
In honor of International Women’s Day, last week Gallup shared global statistics on how women view their lives – graded on a 10-point scale from suffering to struggling to thriving. About a quarter of all women questioned view themselves as thriving, while the rest chose either struggling or suffering. The two areas cited most often as important for improving their lives were jobs and personal safety. While the latter is a shocking finding, this post starts with jobs, though ultimately we will see connections to personal safety as well. Global estimates pin men as almost twice as likely as women to be in full-time formal employment. In Mexico, for example, less than 50 percent of women are part of the labor force, compared to 85 percent of men.
> Posted by Danielle Piskadlo, Manager, Investing in Inclusive Finance, CFI
I have written in the past about some of the advantages of having women on boards, including research correlating women on boards with better bottom lines. I recently came across a fantastic piece published by the IFC, Women on Boards: A Conversation with (Male) Directors, which does a wonderful job of explaining more precisely how women add value to boards. Here are a few quotes from the male directors that contributed their thoughts to the publication.
- “When women are at the table, there is less joking around and more objective discussion. I’ve also found that women tend to be more sensible and more thoughtful. I think they care much more about how decisions made in the boardroom will impact people.”
- “Diversity brings more energy to the boardroom.”
- “Women provide good balance. The dynamics change because women are more willing to give the other side a chance than men.”
- “Women are more strategy oriented. They tend to look at where the company is heading, whether things are on the right track, and why the company might be diverging from its strategic goals.”
- “Women are more likely to be conservative and more attuned to good risk management. I don’t think they are more risk adverse but they have more of a long-term and sustainable approach to issues and less short-termism.”
So, how do we get more women on boards? All hands on deck.
> Posted by Zahra Khalid, Social Analyst, Pakistan Microfinance Network
Pakistan’s financial sector is due for some client-centric changes. Over the past decade there has been rapid growth in consumer lending as well as an increase in the number of households that have taken on risks and obligations that they do not fully understand due to unfair and deceptive practices coupled with low levels of general and financial literacy.
These trends make the World Bank’s recently released industry-wide diagnostic review of the state of consumer protection and financial literacy in the country all the more relevant, and its recommendations targeting irresponsible practices, such as inadequate price disclosure, gender-based discriminatory lending practices, and lack of dispute resolution mechanisms, increasingly important. Offering key findings, recommendations, and comparisons against World Bank-developed best practices, the review is the first to cover the country’s legal, institutional, and regulatory framework from the consumer protection angle.
Facebook
Twitter
Recent Comments