Micro-finance and the empowerment of women — A review of the key issues

List of boxes Box 1: Gender and micro-finance: contrasting paradigms Box 2: Framework for empowerment Box 3: Underlying vision and essential elements of a gender policy for empowerment Box 4: Financial sustainability and empowerment: potentially positive interlinkages Box 5: Conditions of micro-finance delivery: some access, poverty alleviation and empowerment questions Box 6: Rethinking good practice: some innovative %good practice& strategies Box 7: Beyond blueprints: towards a diversified micro-finance sector Box 8: Beyond blueprints: checklist for donors 1 For example in the Declaration at the Micro-credit summit in a section entitled 'Micro-credit: Empowering Poor People to End their Own Poverty' one finds the following: 'empirical evidence has shown that women, as a group, are consistently better in promptness and reliability of repayment. Targeting women as clients of micro-credit programs has also been a very effective method of ensuring that the benefits of increased income accrue to the general welfare of the family, and particularly the children. At the same time, women themselves benefit from the higher status they achieve when they are able to provide new income.'(RESULTS, 1997 p8)