In terms of women’s access to finance there seem to be three worlds of rural finance. There is first of all the old world of agricultural banks and agricultural cooperatives with a bias to land-holding farmers, most of whom are male; women enter into this world only as heads of households. Then there is a new world of mostly donor-driven credit NGOs and other MFIs with a widespread bias to women.

This world has been under the influence of institutions in South Asia, particularly the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the SHG programme in India, where women were targeted by donor and government agencies because large numbers of men worked as migrant labourers and had little scope for productive credit and no time for attending regular meetings. This is the case in India where the mainstreaming of microfinance has resulted in linking 1.6 million self-help groups (SHGs), 90% of which are exclusively women’s groups, to some 36,000 banking units. Then there is a world of unbiased rural and microfinance institutions open to both men and women, in the formal, semiformal as well as informal financial sector.

Depending on culture, choice and opportunity the percentage of women involved may vary widely. Note should be taken that empirical evidence is limited because the balance sheets of banks and MFIs do not report data separately for men and women; and that many MFIs which report figures on the number of clients implicitly refer to borrowers and ignore savers. There is some overall anecdotal evidence that in situations of self-selection as MFI clients the percentage of women varies roughly around 40%, that women are more prevalent among savers than among borrowers; they tend to borrow smaller amounts for shorter periods; and they are the more reliable borrowers.

In many cultures women are the petty traders, with a strong demand for short-term deposit and credit services. In the SFD women appear to have been mostly subsumed under an undifferentiated clientele of MFIs, or simply as household members. Only few contributors explicitly refer to women. From Ethiopia it was reported that women’s access to finance is restricted in “a maledominated patriarchal societal system”. From the Philippines it is reported that men usually tend the farm or look for employment either in the manufacturing or services sector. It’s the women who are inclined to operate microenterprises. Even so, MFIs in the Philippines have patterned their microfinance programmes after that of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which adopts a mechanism for targeting women clientele. The strict credit discipline of Grameen Bank has led to repayment rates very close to 100%. As a result of that experience, many MFIs continue to target women as they are generally known to be responsible borrowers who repay their loans fully and on time. (B. Quiñones)

Three big challenges were presented by a female participant in the debate:
(1) The “sticking plaster’ survival enhancement role is also due to the general failure of most MFIs to seriously address gender issues. MFIs need to provide products and services for women which enable them to get out of the debt management role. Availability of small loans mean they often become more and more responsible for household budgeting while men become less and less responsible for basics like school fees and child health care. Women have become stuck in a cycle of small group loans in order to maximise programme sustainability. MFIs need to consider much more seriously how they can integrate gender awareness and financial management training into mainstream service delivery to enable women, together with spouses where they are present, to think about household investment and financial management strategies over the longer term. This includes linking with BDS.

(2) Unless gender issues are addressed, larger loans to male-owned businesses may either fail to have acceptable repayment rates (the reason why they were stopped before) or to lead to significant poverty reduction. Increasing male incomes does not in and of itself increase incomes actually going into households. In many cultures training/MF promotion for men needs to tackle issues of male responsibility for their families and reinforce household cohesion. In particular encouraging men to save rather than increase spending on their own indulgences. In Africa this is a particularly serious issue.

(3) How can the organisational base provided by microfinance in both rural and urban areas, (both individual and group credit and savings) be expanded for wider civil society development? MF groups and federations can provide a good basis for local communities to examine issues like local economic diversification, collecting information for local lobbying, increasing accountability of schools etc. Issues have to be decided by MF groups themselves, but the regular meetings around savings and credit
provide an ongoing basis for discussion on a wide range of issues.

Another contributor suggests to make MFIs more women-friendly, eg, by offering deposit services with high confidentiality (supposedly vis-à-vis their husbands) and adjusting opening hours to women’s schedules. In many countries doorstep collection services have been an effective technology of reaching large numbers of women, enabling them to accumulate their savings and withdrawing them as needed as an alternative to periodic indebtedness. Ultimately one of the most important factors for women is the enabling environment – land tenure laws, inheritance issues, etc. that discriminate against women. These affect not only financial access but their overall economic and social opportunities. Microfinance has been a catalyst in exposing and empowering women to begin to take collective actions in this regard.