Gender and Development

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Gender Thematic RETAs

Financial Services for Poor Women, 2000

Investing in poor women is one of the most effective strategies for poverty reduction and improving the status of women. Both these goals are at the core of ADB's development agenda. ADB recognizes that microfinance is crucial to assisting women to make the transition out of poverty. Not only does microfinance improve women's participation in economic activities and increase their income, microfinance can empower women and give them the status and dignity in the family and community.

While the microfinance industry has grown rapidly and received increasing support, there is still a vast, economically active, and productive population outside the reach of MFIs. ADB estimates that over 170 million poor households in the region are still lacking access to financial services. Inputs to strengthen and expand existing MFIs, especially women-led and women-oriented organizations, can have a large multiplier effect in providing poor women with the tools they need to build and protect income and assets for their families.

Recognizing that poor women need more than just financial services, these MFIs have developed products and services that complement the delivery of financial services. Committed to improving women's social and economic status, women-led MFIs need assistance to develop diversified products tailored to suit poor women, while remaining financially sustainable.

This TA was developed, in partnership with the Women's World Banking (WWB) - a global network of women-led practitioner institutions, to increase poor women's access to financial services by building the capacity of women-led microfinance institutions (MFIs) to expand their outreach to the poor and develop products tailored to suit poor women's needs. The TA's goal is to expand access to credit, savings, insurance, and other financial services for poor women entrepreneurs and producers, to enable them to improve their livelihood, and increase their income and assets.

The TA focuses on

• strengthening the capacity of women-led WWB affiliates in Asia, to enable them to increase their sustainability, expand their outreach, and provide financial products and services that respond to the needs of poor clients
• organize effective lateral learning among practitioners, including exchanges involving WWB associates
• bring together microfinance practitioners from within and beyond the WWB network, including mainstream financial institutions active in microfinance, to share knowledge, successful practices and innovations
• engage leading MFIs, bankers and policymakers in consensus-building processes geared to building financial systems that work for the majority of the poor

The TA will be implemented in four developing member countries:

• Bangladesh
• India
• Philippines
• Sri Lanka

The TA scope is divided into two parts.

Part A will cover three broad areas of WWB activities in Asia. Technical and capacity-building services to WWB affiliates include training on strategy, operational and organizational effectiveness, microfinance products and processes, loan tracking and selection, and evaluation of management information systems. Practitioner Exchanges and best-practice workshops will be lateral learning engagements that will involve WWB affiliates, associates, other WWB learning and change partners. Policy change activities will involve consensus-building processes in which WWB mobilizes microfinance leaders, bankers, and financial sector leaders, policymakers and funding agencies to build financial sector policies and systems that work for majority of the poor.

Part B will provide support to WWB's six Asian affiliates for activities geared to providing services to poor women clients and expanding outreach to obtain multiplier impacts of the TA. Activities will broadly comprise the following areas:

• leadership and business training for poor women clients
• outreach activities to obtain multiplier impacts
• feasibility studies
• training of locally based NGOs and community-based organizations engaged in microfinance services
• affiliate staff training for short courses
• research, documentation, and dissemination of case studies and good practice. Asian affiliates include the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Karnataka (AWAKE) and Friends of Women's World Banking (FWWB) in India, Women's Development Federation (JANASHAKTI) in Sri Lanka, Shakti Foundation for Disadvantaged Women in Bangladesh, Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD) and Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation, Inc. (NWTF)

See also: RETA 5670 on Low-Income Women Entrepreneurs in Asia

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