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> Posted by Center Staff
Nancy Barry pioneered lending to small enterprise at the World Bank in the late 1970s, and she later wrote its policy on this type of lending. She also designed projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and led expansion of the World Bank’s small business portfolio from zero to $3.3 billion in only a decade.
While at the World Bank she joined the board of Women’s World Banking (WWB), a network of women-led microfinance institutions, serving as its president and CEO for 16 years. Most recently, she founded Enterprise Solutions to Poverty, which works with about 130 leaders of emerging market corporations and multi-national corporations that are engaging large numbers of poor people as suppliers, distributors, and consumers of products and services that build assets.
Barry shares her thoughts on the microfinance industry past, present, and future in the fifth installment of the “Microfinance Matters” interview series:
Nancy Barry
Change Agent
In her early days as a young professional at the World Bank, Nancy Barry traveled to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. She observed micro-venders everywhere — selling farm produce in villages or whatever they could in the streets of cities. “I became obsessed with finding ways to build out to the bottom 50 percent of the economy,” she recalls.
Armed with an MBA from Harvard University, she pioneered lending to small enterprise at the World Bank in the late 1970s, before microfinance was known among development professionals. Barry went on to write the World Bank’s policy on small enterprise lending, design projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America and lead expansion of the Bank’s small business portfolio from zero to $3.3 billion in 10 years.
While at the World Bank she joined the board of Women’s World Banking (WWB), a network of women-led microfinance institutions…
To read more of the interview with Barry, click here.
> Posted by Center Staff
For centuries, sages, poets, and scientists have punched the clock and collected paychecks for puzzling over “what women want.” Forbes journalist Lisa Quast is now posting her answer to that question, at least in terms of microfinance.
Quast interviews Women’s World Banking President and CEO Mary Ellen Iskenderian in a three-part series. In the second post, “What Women Want from Microfinance,” Iskenderian zeroes in on savings as a must-have product. Iskenderian also identifies financial education as a key to making savings accessible to women.
There’s a lot more to it, of course. Quast’s three-part series – well worth a read – starts here.
Image credit: Tango Desktop Project
> Posted by Michelle Romeu
This week our blog-hopping takes us from the water pump to the cell phone, as well as points in-between.
- Mary Ellen Iskenderian, president and CEO of Women’s World Banking, guest posts at the Harvard Business Review blog to point out the many circumstances in which women are not only microfinance clients, but also microfinance leaders.
- The UN’s World Water Day was last week, and Chelsea Dubois of the (oft-microfinance-oriented) Innovations for Poverty Action blog took the opportunity to show us a striking photo (and the story behind it) that shows us the dire need for clean water in areas such as rural Ghana. (And in connection with MF and H2O, don’t forget Matt Damon.) Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Mary Dakim, Intern, Financial Inclusion for Persons with Disabilities Program
Mary Dakim
Portfolios of the Excluded: Anyone who has lived or worked in the field recognizes the difference in international development research that is enriched by voices and realities of the field versus what is produced in developed countries based on books, internet searches, and a general literature review. For that reason, I was delighted to hear of The Center for Financial Inclusion’s goal of finding case studies from across the world of non-subsidized financial services for persons with disabilities (PWDs). I think their approach will yield a more authentic perspective on the magnitude of exclusion for this population. Whether the investigation yields root causes on the demand or supply side, it will allow for a deeper understanding of the opportunities and obstacles persons with disabilities as well as financial service providers face in reaching inclusion for this population. If you have case studies, please let us know via a comment below or .
In hopes of providing one of those “voices from the field,” I offer you my own story. My personal experience living in Nigeria for 28 years as a woman with a disability and facing poverty is unlike the millions of other similar women with disabilities whose stories will remain unwritten and unknown. I was lucky to have been accompanied on my personal path to financial citizenship. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Michelle Romeu
So far, March offers a mixed bag of news – largely good, some bad – from the microfinance world. From International Women’s Day to troubles at Grameen Bank, here are our Top Picks for this week:
- In honor of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, March 8th, NextBillion features videos of three microcredit success stories from women in Bangladesh and Mali.
- In the same vein, Kiva.org President Premal Shah describes a vivid memory from a visit to India , and tells of many other women she’s been able to give a hand up through microfinance. As she says, “Microfinance created a way to allow people to invest in each other.” Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Adriana Magdas
Over 80 percent of the poorest microfinance clients worldwide are women, according to The Microcredit Summit Campaign.
If that were all there was to say, that would still be reason enough to celebrate. But that’s not actually where the story ends. Research shows that women are MFIs’ most reliable clients, often attaining a higher impact from their loans.
So it’s no surprise that March 8th, International Women’s Day, has deep significance for the microfinance industry. Read the rest of this entry »
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