Boxed Text: The Presentations
Box 1: Delores McLaughlin, PLAN International
PLAN
International is a child-focused international NGO with operations
in 57 countries. Its goal in implementing microfinance activities
is to increase household income in order to benefit children,
and its focus on women is a result of the fact that, as the primary
caregivers, they tend to spend more of their income on children
than men do. While PLAN is thus committed to reaching poor women,
it also believes that microfinance operations should be sustainable,
and works in partnership with local organizations that have a
compatible vision. It also promotes linkages between microfinance
and other programme areas, such as health, environment, and habitat.
In her presentation,
Dolores McLaughlin identified several key challenges to the microfinance
sector in the area of gender.
- Microfinance
is a financial services programme and MFIs (in general) are
not experienced with gender analysis or gender issues.
- Donor focus
has been on institutional sustainability with little emphasis
on clients.
- Current
microfinance methodologies are not tailored in a flexible way
to meet the range of women’s various needs.
- Gender
dynamics in the household have an effect on women’s participation
(sometimes negative).
- Women need
information and support in addition to financial services to
improve positioning and quality of life.
- Advancing
from ‘micro’ to ‘small’ enterprise is a
critical challenge for many women.
- HIV/AIDS
is having a significant affect on both clients and institutions.
In light of
these challenges, PLAN has outlined a number of priority areas
in which it is devising strategies to advance the organization’s
work. In an effort to acquire more information about women’s
needs for and uses of financial services, as well as client satisfaction
and programme quality, PLAN will work with its partners to develop
systems to periodically collect and evaluate information regarding
the effect of its services. Using that information, it will collaborate
with partner organizations to expand portfolios to offer a more
varied range of financial services. PLAN also intends to work
with partners to address gender related issues whenever possible,
by strengthening the gender perspective in institutional analysis
of its partners, needs analysis, and programme evaluations. Lastly,
the organization feels it is important to integrate education
on critical issues into methodologies, which necessitates building
linkages with other programmes (health, food security, etc.).
Ms. McLaughlin especially stressed the importance of collaboration between the Gender and Development (GAD) and microfinance communities in order to improve services for women. While the public image of microfinance has become somewhat that of a gender or women’s programme, to practitioners it has always been about providing financial services to those who would not normally have access to them. Although gender analysis of microfinance activities is needed, for example, to reveal inequities in the way services are rendered or differential impacts, sustainability must remain a core value. Only if microfinance is sustainable, can the sector begin to address other concerns.
