I recently had the pleasure of speaking to journalist Elizabeth Matsangou from World Finance, on a topic close to my heart – female empowerment. An excellent outcome of this conversation was an insightful article from Elizabeth, detailing the benefits and challenges facing the microfinance community, and the role women can play in driving it forward.
Microfinance products can be truly life changing. When targeted at women, it can empower them by providing them with personal income. The ripple effect of this empowerment can also benefit communities from the bottom up, by promoting increased employment and productivity. Microfinance now stands as an ideal way to grow the economies of developing states.
No one said it was going to be easy. Elizabeth’s article raises important questions about the obstacles to this development, most notably that a lack of education can impede the effectiveness of microfinance. Financial literacy lies at the heart of effective microfinance, and at FINCA, we are taking great strides to ensure that education and investment is at the core of our future strategy.
Microfinance is one piece of a much larger puzzle. But it has proven itself, time and time again, to be an effective method to foster equality and growth in the world’s most impoverished communities.
Read the full article from Elizabeth here
Rupert