From vicious to virtuous circles? Gender and micro-enterprise development

In this paper the author reviews some of the past and current experience of micro-enterprise programmes for women: training, credit and producer groups and co-operatives. Although there are some successes, the evidence indicates that the majority of programmes fail to make any significant impact on women's incomes. Most programmes, including co-operatives, have on the whole benefited better-off women. They cannot be assumed to have a beneficial impact on gender inequalities, but may increase workloads without increasing access to incomes within the household. They also cannot be assumed to be of greater benefit than other types of employment programmes to women labourers. The author argues that the diversity of the small-scale sector on the one hand, and the complexity of constraints posed by poverty and inequality on the other, make the likelihood of any easy "blueprint" for successful women's micro-enterprise development extremely slim. Both the market and empowerment approaches to micro-enterprise development contain a number of inherent tensions. These are complicated rather than resolved through the co-option of participation within the market approach, and greater attention to efficiency within the empowerment approach. What is clear from this paper is that micro-enterprise development for women is unlikely to be an "all-win", "bottom-up" solution to a wide range of development problems, as much of the rhetoric would imply. It cannot be seen as a substitute for welfare programmes or direct efforts to support labour and address gender inequality. Even in terms of narrow aims of increasing beneficiary incomes, micro-enterprise development is unlikely to succeed for the vast majority of poor women (rather than a small number of better-off women) unless it is part of a transformed wider agenda. There are particularly serious implications for any reliance on micro-enterprise programmes as the main focus of a wider strategy for poverty alleviation and change in gender inequality

Participatory Learning for Women's Empowerment in Micro?Finance Programmes: Negotiating Complexity, Conflict and Change

summary Micro?finance programmes for women are currently promoted not only as a strategy for poverty alleviation but also for women's empowerment. However, the complexity of empowerment itself and interlinkages with policy make conventional research methodologies extremely lengthy and costly. This article proposes frameworks and participatory methodologies for integrating empowerment concerns into ongoing programme learning. These would themselves be a contribution to empowerment. First, programme staff would be given a more representative and reliable exposure to the priorities and problems of programme participants. Second, it would develop networks and a forum for discussion between women themselves on issues relevant to their interests and integrated into programme decision?making. The quantitative and qualitative information obtained by programmes and clients on an ongoing basis would be directly and immediately available to inform policy decisions and enable independent outsider research to be cost?effectively targeted to issues where it is really needed for policy development

Vers un nouveau paradigme dans les programmes de micro-crédit

Le financement des programmes de micro-crédit au bénéfice d’un grande nombre de femmes va augmenter dans les années 1990, sous l’impulsion du CGAP. La littérature préparée à l’occasion du sommet pour le micro-crédit, à Washington en février 1997, ainsi que de nombreuses propositions de crédits émanant des donateurs et des ONG présentent de façon très positive des programmes de micro-crédit. Ces programmes sont de plus en plus nombreux, touchent une population de plus en plus large, et sont so..

Taking Gender Seriously: Towards a Gender Justice Protocol for Financial Services

Gender equality of opportunity and women's empowerment are now widely recognised as integral and inseparable parts of any sustainable strategy for economic growth and pro-poor development: • Women are statistically the global majority. As the global majority, women cannot be treated as ‘a special case ’ but their needs and interests must be as integral a part of any development policy as those of men. • Gender equality of opportunity and women's empowerment are essential for economic growth. Studies by World bank and others have shown that countries that have taken positive steps to promote gender equality have substantially higher levels of growth2. • Gender equality and women's empowerment are essential components of poverty reduction strategies. Gender inequality and women's disempowerment are key factors in creating poverty3. Gender inequality means women have higher representation amongst the poor and therefore women's needs are the majority norm rather than minority interest in poverty reduction strategies. Women also have prime responsibility for children and family wellbeing which makes them key actors in poverty reduction

Des éléments essentiels d’une politique de genre

Référence : Mayoux, Linda. “Des éléments essentiels d’une politique de genre : “L’Empowerment” des femmes contre la viabilité ? (deuxième partie)”, in Jeanne Bisilliat et Christine Verschuur. Genre et économie : un premier éclairage. Genève : Graduate Institute Publications, 2001, pp. 401-415, DOI : 10.4000/books.iheid.5493. Acheter le .pdf chapitre éditeur. […] Des éléments essentiels d’une politique de genre Institutionnalisation de lignes directrices tenant compte des questions de genre d..

Des éléments essentiels d’une politique de genre

Référence : Mayoux, Linda. “Des éléments essentiels d’une politique de genre : “L’Empowerment” des femmes contre la viabilité ? (deuxième partie)”, in Jeanne Bisilliat et Christine Verschuur. Genre et économie : un premier éclairage. Genève : Graduate Institute Publications, 2001, pp. 401-415, DOI : 10.4000/books.iheid.5493. Acheter le .pdf chapitre éditeur. […] Des éléments essentiels d’une politique de genre Institutionnalisation de lignes directrices tenant compte des questions de genre d..