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Displaying all posts under the topic of Gender
March 5, 2013
Women and the Success of Mobile Financial Services
The mobile money revolution has been greeted with great excitement in some circles for the potential it holds to increase financial access for the world’s poorest. Women may especially benefit from expanding financial inclusion through mobile financial services (MFS).
July 19, 2012
Women in Banking
Bringing the unbanked into the formal financial system requires innovation—but sometimes the innovation required is far from what we spend most of our time thinking about. A post at the New York Fed’s Liberty Street Economics blog details an important innovation required to bring women into bank branches at the turn of the 20th century: a private room for extracting cash from their stockings.
December 29, 2011
Mary Ellen Iskenderian: The Year in Microfinance
As CEO of a global microfinance network I spent much of 2010 answering questions about the crisis in India and advocating for the continued relevance of microfinance as a model.
February 17, 2011
How do Women Weather Economic Shocks?
A new paper from the World Bank explores what we know about how women weather economic shocks. Here’s the main result:
October 18, 2010
Barbara Magnoni on microfinance product design
The vast majority of microfinance programs -- particularly group lending efforts -- explicitly target women. This focus grew in part out of the belief, supported by some research, that women are more likely to invest in the household as a whole, particularly in the children. Given that, what can we do to improve women’s financial self-sufficiency, either through employment, entrepreneurial success or thoughtful risk management tools?
This is the third in a series of posts looking back at the last big microfinance conference held in 2008, co-hosted by IPA and FAI at Yale University.
There is still time to book places at next week's Microfinance Impact and Innovation Conference in New York.
This month, FAI was pleased to host Frances Sinha as a guest blogger, who shared insights from her work on Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in India.
April 20, 2010
Self Help Groups in India: Living up to their Promise?
This month Frances Sinha is writing about lessons from her important new book, Microfinance Self-Help Groups in India: Living Up to Their Promise. Her first post introduced the book. Today's post describes some of the most striking lessons.