When Good Intentions are Not
Enough
NGO - private sector partnerships and state policy for
women’s economic empowerment
Key conference questions
• What is the most effective balance between the state and
the private sector in achieving sustainable national
development? What are the roles that state and private
sector might play in promoting development?
• What are the most effective policies for assisting
particularly vulnerable groups to better integrate into
national economic processes?
Key points
• Economic processes and institutions are not value neutral
entities. They are shaped by the same biases, including
gender biases, as the cultures that produced them.
• The most common development solutions towards gender
equality in economic growth focus primarily on changing
women and/or their communities. Interventions that call on
other actors, such as the private sector, to develop are needed
if development interventions are to be accurately targeted and
if their results are to be sustained.
• NGOs, the private sector and governments already possess
good examples of policy, programs or practices to solutions to
make changes to the market, but they need to be more widely
implemented.
Case studies
Zimbabwe
Indonesia
• Micro- and small agrodealer enterprises in
Masvingo
• 5 year project beginning in
2007
• Goal: strengthen market
linkages in agricultural
supply chains
• Micro- and small
seaweed and fish
processing enterprises in
South Sulawesi
• 4 year project (approval
pending)
• Goal: reduce gender
inequalities in small
business knowledge and
service provision
July 27, 2016
Loan sizes follow gender bias, not credit worthiness
• Maximum loan provided to
women was USD $8,000 and to
men was USD $10,000.
• But median amount in the
$1,000 to $2,500 range for
women and $1,500 to $4,000
for men.
• The amount approved for men
increased more quickly.
• The FI says that
men are riskier, but
they loan them
more anyways.
• The FI continues
an assumption that
men do big
business as the
head of the family
and women to
small business to
supplement
household income.
Collateral continues to restrict women’s business
expansion
• The FIs will only approve soft loans up to $2,000 and
$5,000 respectively. Collateral must be 200% the value of
the loan.
• Hard collateral is out of the reach of most Zimbabwean
women.
• This effectively shuts
women out of larger loans
and decreases their ability
to compete through bulk
purchasing.
Women subsidize FIs and the NGO reinforces this
• When men’s businesses fail, the NGO
signs loan responsibility over to female
beneficiaries.
• It is easier to contact women to ensure
they pay their loans back.
So who
is
working
for
whom
• It is to the bank’s advantage to have a large number of
here?
clients all paying back a known amount of interest reliably.
• When women regularly pay interest on medium-sized
loans, or when they turn men’s businesses around, they
ensure predictable cash flow for the FIs and subsidize
men’s risky behaviour.
Solutions for NGOs and the private sector
• NGOs: Ensure your business planning and marketing homework
is done before project implementation.
• Complete gender sensitive value chain analysis and marketing studies before
engaging women in business.
• Include a “do no harm” strategy to minimize known negative impacts of
promoting female entrepreneurs.
• Only partner with private sector actors who are willing to change their practices
or products.
• Financial institutions: You’re a product of culture, and it really
does affect the bottom line.
• Examine the effects of social biases on business strategies (and profits). Use
sex-disaggregated financial data to show how female and male clients really
behave.
• Hire and promote women to loan officer positions. Train all officers to apply
banking rules uniformly and to work with female as well as male clients.
• Create incentives for increasing the variety of products women can access and
for promoting men to take on only sound risk.
Cracks in the foundation of Indonesia’s economic
growth
large,
medium
and small
L/M
enterprises:
enterprises
almost
all owned
1% of allbyofmen
Indonesia's
enterprises
S enterprises:
32% owned by women
most of the 32% of
women are here
micro-enterprises:
women more likelymicro-enterprises
labourers, men more likely owners
99% of
enterprises
in Indonesia
women almost
no all
ownership
of collateral,
low access to
appropriate
financing,
less access
to extension,
The majority
of women's
businesses
fall intoweak
this
business
management
and
product
quality
knowledge,
category (no formal data with an exact percentage
weaker linkages
to markets,
exists).
men more membership in business collectives, more access
to government support schemes
biases in financial, business service provision and
regulations
Gender inequalities lead to low product quality and
business profits
• In the seaweed sector in
South Sulawesi, women
are responsible for 90%
of labour but receive
only about 10% of
related extension.
Financial products are not suitable to poor
businesswomen
• IWAPI negotiated two different types of products with a
national FI.
• The FI cancelled one product, saying that interest earnings
were not sufficient to warrant administration costs.
• In the case of the other product, businesswomen who took
advantage of the supposedly lower borrowing rates on a
group loan ended up paying interest on the total amount of
the loan rather than just their portion of it.
Policies are in place, but not enacted
• Business registration procedures
are the same for women and men
on the books, but officers will often
require supplementary
documentation or men’s signatures
from women.
• IWAPI and others note outright
discrimination such as women
being told that they have been
refused their loans because
lending to women will increase the
divorce rate.
• It is custom that only men sign
property deeds, even though
Indonesian law provides for two
signatures.
Solutions for government and the private sector
• Government:
• Enforce property registration laws. Develop legislation to register
informal businesses as property.
• Ensure extension agents are trained to meet the needs of female
clients and that women are included in value chain development work
and schemes supported by MOA .
• Strengthen the national women’s ministry to work with the ministry of
cooperatives on the breadth, depth and quality of services. This
includes training for line agents and loan officers.
• Continue to develop one-stop-shops for business registration.
• Financial institutions:
• Create a business model in which a percentage of financial products
are of a type that is more appropriate for poor women. Intentionally
plan this in order to mitigate risk.
• Train business registration officers and provide incentives to those
who apply the same standards of service to women and men.
In conclusion
• There are limits to the extent to which subalterns are
able to engage in their own empowerment projects
without equal change from those who hold more formal
power.
• Development efforts in gender equality in economic
growth are reaching those limits.
• What creative processes and packages can be used with
FIs, male intermediaries and larger scale businessmen,
community leaders, or government line agents?
• How does government hold itself and citizens
accountable for change?
Thank you
Questions? Comments? For more information, contact
margaret.capelazo@care.ca
I’m a human being,
not a market!
But we’re still waiting
for you to recognize
our rights,
I stopped waiting
and started acting
years ago!
and for
property
ownership,…
and equal
salaries,…
and our
share in
valued
markets,…
and for men
to take on
reproductive
work.