This weeks guest blogger is Ulrike Neubert, SIE’s Programme Director. "Investing in women is smart economy" – here she reflects upon this statement and the need to empower women economically as well as socially.
‘Investing in women is smart economy": This is a statement which was first circulated by the world bank and has lately been repeated by many development organisations. Words are being followed by action as more attention is now being given to women’s economic empowerment through training in business skills. And there is a marked change in the attitude of the banking sector towards loans for women as enough evidence was gathered e.g. through micro finance experience of the Grameen Bank to prove that women are responsible customers who not only live up to their repayment commitments but also use their loans in the best interest of their families and communities.
This has resulted in an increased willingness of micro finance institutions take the risk of loaning to women without secure collateral and women have proven credit worthy as the average repayment rate of more than 95% shows. However in many countries the lack of collateral is still a tremendous handicap for women in the developing world, as they often do not own assets such as land or property. Those were securities accessible only to their fathers, brothers or husbands. So what did women do who were single, divorced or widowed? They often organised themselves into informal groups and started their own self supporting ‘microfinance’ systems such as table banking.
However with increase of loan accessibility to women not only an improvement in the status of women has been achieved but also a decreased level of poverty in their respective community. This is especially visible in the rural environment where farmers (mainly women) are still living on subsistence production. Where women gain business skills and are able to get loans markets are busy with a variety of processed products, children are going to school, people are able to attend clinics for their health needs and the communities show signs of prosperity.
So what does this mean for us as Soroptimists? Let’s invest in women! If we want to make positive changes and work towards achievement of the Millenium Development Goals which are all addressing symptoms of poverty often experienced mainly by women and children we need to address the root causes of poverty. Putting money into women’s hands seems to be fast tracking this process of change. However money is only one step towards women freeing themselves from the shackles of poverty, learning basic business skills and new technical skills such as food processing is surely another basic requirement for success.
I realised when we were identifying projects for our