1. How Can We Make
Microfinance More
Useful to Women?
Linda Mayoux
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 1

2. Why gender mainstreaming?
• Women are at least half the population
• Women’s human rights
• Poverty reduction
• Economic growth
• Financial sustainability of FSPs
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 2

3. 4 BIG C-MYTHS
• Complacency
• Culture
• Conflict
• Cost
ALL CAN BE CHALLENGED
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 3

4. Business Arguments for MFIs
• Large potential and underserved female market
• Financial sustainability of FSPs because of
high repayment
• Women's empowerment enables them to use
more profitable products
• Men’s empowerment reduces destructive
masculine behaviours
• Client loyalty reduces follow-up costs
• Management diversity makes better decision-
making
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 4

5. A financially sustainable strategy
Steps which all FSPs can take:
• ‘Walking the talk’: organizational gender
policy
• Participatory market research for
empowering products
• Gender and empowerment mainstreaming
in non-financial services
• Building on group activities/client networks
for action learning and collective action
• Macro-level focus and advocacy
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 5

6. Organisational Mainstreaming
• Vision and institutional culture
• Mainstreaming women’s language
• Application processes for products
• Equal opportunity policies for staff
• Recruitment, training and promotion policies
• Information systems
• Using forms of communication and modes of
delivery accessible to women
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 6

7. Financial Action Learning System
Financially sustainable entry point for gender
justice and empowerment
Combines
• Financial education
• Participatory market research
• SPM
Integrated into application processes
Sustainable through client peer training
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 7

8. Some empowering products
• Longer-term credit or leasing to build
women’s assets eg land, housing in women’s
names
• Flexible credit to maximise investment in
profitable activities
• Pension/long term savings
• Graduation for the ultra-poor from grants
linked to training and employment creation
• Value chain finance
DEMAND-driven participatory market research
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 8

9. Sustainable non-financial services
• Mainstreaming empowerment in core training
and group mobilization
• Mainstreaming empowerment in all other
nonfinancial services, including BDS and
value chain development
• Developing mechanisms for peer training
• Cross-subsidy from micro-finance and/or older
and richer clients
• Collaboration with other providers of non-
financial services and private sector actors
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 9

10. Collective action for empowerment
• Domestic violence
• Women’s property rights
• Women’s political participation
• Food security and basic needs
• Gender Action Learning System
(GALS)
• Gender Justice events
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 10

11. Enabling environment
Funding agencies could promote:
• sectoral research on gender impacts of different models in the
financial sector, including commercialisation.
• sectoral learning and capacity-building networks for
innovation to increase women’s empowerment at all levels
• financial and enterprise education with a women’s
empowerment perspective in schools and educational
establishments
• gender mainstreaming in national and international
business/financial training at practitioners and tertiary level
• gender experts and women’s organizations in designing
financial regulations and consumer protection
• intersectoral linkages and advocacy to mainstream gender
justice in economic policy and planning
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 11

12. Questions??
RESOURCES
Genfinance website:
www.genfinance.info
Oxfam Novib’s WEMAN
website
www.wemanglobal.org
How can we make microfinance more useful to women © Linda Mayoux 2011 Slide 12