How can women and girls in developing countries gain better access to financial services?
The Guardian posed this question to global experts on financial inclusion in September at a discussion sponsored by Opportunity International. Experts from New York-based nonprofit Women’s World Banking, the United Nations Foundation and Women4Empowerment identified challenges facing women who are excluded from the economy, and they brainstormed how the private sector and civic society could help overcome the issue.
The numbers spell out the problem. Recent reports from the United Nations Development Fund for Women find women perform 66% of the world’s work and produce 50% of the globe’s food, yet earn 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property. And the International Labor Organization tracks that 70% of the 1 billion people in extreme poverty are female.
The UN gathering outlined the actions that corporations, nonprofits and financial institutions must take to close the stubborn gender gap in bank account ownership – and explained why banks must include women and girls in their plans.
“It’s going to take all of us here to recognize the sustainable development goals, but also to improve the lives of women and girls,” said Eliza Anwangwe, executive editor of Guardian News and Media and the event’s chair.
Slow and steady progress
Help has been coming from big enterprise – particularly banks and retailers. Natalie Byrne, director of global impact at the Los Angeles-based skincare company Dermalogica, shared insights from the Dermalogica Foundation’s Financial Independence through Entrepreneurship (FITE) programs that help women overcome barriers.
One success: in New York, FITE’s Future Entrepreneur’s salon program provides a pathway to entrepreneurship for young women who hope to have careers in the skincare industry. The program works with girls and women ages 16 through 26 who would otherwise live on welfare or work in poorly paid jobs like those at fast food chains. The scholarship offers training, materials and supplies including a laptop. The training covers business management, financial literacy and career shadowing. Ultimately, the women land a job within a salon. “Through FITE, Dermalogica has helped fund over 60,000 microfinance loans for women entrepreneurs in over 70 countries, and provides vocational training and scholarships for women and girls across the world,” Byrne said.
Many at the roundtable expressed high hopes for mobile banking as a tool for inclusion – a report from the GSM Association (GSMA), an organization of mobile operators, found nine out of 10 women surveyed said it made them feel safer and more secure. In the same survey, 60% of women in 10 countries said they thought mobile phone ownership would help save them money.
Meanwhile, partnerships with nonprofits and banks have been successful, like when Women’s World Banking and Diamond Bank launched a savings account program in Nigeria, a country where 73% of women have never used financial products. The initiative allowed women to open savings accounts using their mobile phones, while the nonprofit convinced Diamond Bank that removing high ATM fees led to trust and loyalty from female customers. The upshot: more than 200,000 BETA accounts have been opened, showing that by understanding women’s needs and designing a product meeting them, a commercial bank can successfully serve the women’s market.
Yet progress is not where it should be. Scott MacMillan, a senior writer and communications specialist at the charity BRAC USA, said he wondered whether nonprofits and corporations were reaching the poorest people. “Often the poorest are self-excluded by microfinance because they simply can’t pay back the loan,” he said.
Others pondered whether nonprofits and the private sector worked effectively together in their financial inclusion efforts. “Do nonprofits view corporations with noble missions to help women and children gain better access to financial services as anything beyond wealthy benefactors?” Anwangwe asked.
Representatives largely agreed that corporate involvement meant more than writing a check – companies could offer expertise and branding. In an interview before the roundtable happened, Mary Ellen Iskenderian, president and CEO of Women’s World Banking, noted the organization consistently maintained five CEOs from its partner banks on its board of trustees: “These people on the ground lend credibility to the work we do.”
(Next time, read about the financial returns companies can reap when they create services for women and girls.)
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