Women’s World Banking – charting new paths in microfinance

Our GBA member Women’s World Banking is committed to expanding the economic assets, participation, and power of the poor, especially women. Their network includes 40 microfinance providers and banks working in 28 countries. A new article in Forbes magazine puts the spotlight on the organization’s accomplishments and some of its continued challenges. The article also discusses the phenomenon of ‘mission drift’ – a situation when organizations focus increasingly on higher income clients and away from lower income ones, who are often women. The issue of ‘mission drift’ is especially relevant given the ongoing debate about the future of microfinance.

For Mary Ellen Iskenederian, the President and CEO of Women’s World Banking, this future includes the provision of microcredit in combination with other services, such as education, health care, and savings products. To promote savings products in developing countries, Women’s World Banking has received a $8.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We look forward to seeing how these funds are put to use to empower women around the world.

Banking on women in India

Bihar is one of India’s poorest states where 36 of its 83 million people live in poverty. And almost 2.3 million poor are exposed to large debts, with food, health and education accounting for 25 to 30 percent of consumption expenses.  The Jeevika (meaning livelihood) project seeks to address this issue. With funding from the World Bank, the project is implemented by the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society.

Jeevika builds women’s self-help groups, which have proliferated across India, and encourages them to save, engage in economic activities, and then eventually engage with the formal banking system. Through this process, women can finally free themselves from the often oppressive village money lenders. They have been putting their new income and skills to good use – buying livestock or setting up small shops. Women’s repayment rates through the program have been an impressive 95% – a figure that is standard in microfinance.

Development India: Banking on Women

World Bank Jeevika Project Information

Debating the future of microfinance

Our GBA member Women’s World Banking (WWB) Center for Microfinance Leadership and the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at the Wharton School of Business recently partnered to bring together 22 microfinance leaders from 14 countries for a workshop to examine the state of the microfinance industry and plan for its future.  Such discussions are timely and much needed, given the evolution of the microfinance industry from a not-for-profit model to a profit generating enterprise.

Participants discussed new approaches to meeting industry needs in the areas of corporate governance, risk management, and talent management, as well as working on scenario planning. Considering microfinance’s overwhelming positive impact on poor women around the world, such thoughtful discussions are most welcome.

Read a news story on the workshop

Watch WWB’s President and CEO Mary Ellen Iskenderian talk about the concept of microfinance