The Impact of MFP on Women's Lives ~ (AREU report, 2012)

[یاسمینه]

The Impact of Microfinance Programmes on Women’s Lives: A Case Study in Balkh Province

[faye]

these file things are hard for me to read as they scroll slowly and jigger irritatingly.
did you read this yourself yasmeenaah?
was the outcome positive?

[یاسمینه]

Here you have the Conclusion chapter:

6. Conclusion and Recommendations
There are several conclusions that can be drawn from the experience of women clients and non-clients in the study community. They are the following:
• All six clients’ participation in MFI-1’s loan programme had obviously improved their economic circumstances. In doing so, these women had generally used their loans to fund an embroidery or tailoring business and were able to pay the instalments on time.
• The most common reason women gave for taking a loan was to improve their families’ economic conditions. It does not appear that they had initially expected or anticipated any of the other consequences of their participation.
• Many of the women interviewed in the study did have some degree of power prior to taking part in the loan programme, but they did not have the means to act on the power they had. Accessing loans from the MFI gave them the resources needed to act on this power.
• The change most commonly observed by both women clients and their family members was the shift that occurred in their social mobility or in their interactions with other people. Female and male family members alike noticed that women clients began to interact more with other people, especially women, in both formal matters of business and more informal exchanges. In addition, women clients learned how to negotiate with shopkeepers to lower the cost of materials or get better prices for their products.
• Support from family members was crucial in determining both whether women took part in the programme in the first place, and how they handled their loans once they had done so. Without the active support of their families, the six women clients would have experienced stress in all aspects of their lives.
• Women’s reasons for not taking part in the loan programme varied from being inhibited by family members, fear of not being able to make repayments, not needing the money, being against the sudh involved, or having low levels of interaction with other community members.
• Several non-clients reported high levels of mobility despite their lack of participation in the loan programme. This suggests that improved mobility may not necessarily be a direct result of participation in the loan programme, and could be equally dependent on women’s’ individual household circumstances.
• Community members generally varied in their opinions of women taking loans. However, FGD participants and informants also reported that community members did not mind how other people went about trying to improve their lives.
Ways forward
Testimony from informants and participants in the study community points to the following options for improving women’s engagement in loan programmes:
• At the national level, stable security conditions are vital to ensuring women’s mobility outside the home and effective involvement in small business.
• Loan offices could offer mechanisms to help women further capitalise on their loans, such as teaching them marketing or advertising strategies for their products. In this respect, exploring ways to share the success stories of women clients among other community members may be worthwhile.The Impact of Microfinance Programmes on Women’s Lives: A Case Study in Balkh Province 53
• Given the vital importance of male family members and community elders in both facilitating or inhibiting women’s involvement in loan programmes, loan offices should make every effort to ensure buy-in among these groups at the earliest stage of their activities.
• While community members in this study suggested the elimination of interest and fines for late repayment, this raises obvious implications in terms of financial sustainability and practicality. Instead, it may work better if value formation that includes integrity and honesty in paying loans is integrated into the social preparation work done by loan offices, and the importance of discipline in the payment of loan instalments emphasised.

[faye]

yass, did you ever read up on muhammad yunus, who started these loans in bangladesh?
i saw him being interviewed the other day about something he is propogating, 'social business.'

[Pisho]

wow yasmeenaah u r doing a great job posting these..
i read snippets of it and its very interesting
i really appreciate that u take the time to post these

thanks

[یاسمینه]

yass, did you ever read up on muhammad yunus, who started these loans in bangladesh?
i saw him being interviewed the other day about something he is propogating, 'social business.'

Yes, we even argued a little if Yunus defrauded money or not

[faye]

that has been proven to be false by the group he is supposed to have taken it from.
muhammad yunus on wikipedia, explains all about him and that situation.