Dear colleagues at FAO
Thank you very much for this great opportunity. We are currently engaged on a similar assignment of supporting agro-industrial parks, specifically on how they can strengthen the food system.
I would focus more on access to finance...
Learning from the past couple of decades on expanding access to finance to women, often using the Group Guarantee Lending Model (GGLM) pioneered by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, there has been real progress on deeping the ''micro-credit'' service. There are many impact assessment reports, highlighting both positive, neutral as well as negative impacts. The conclusion seems that the actual impacts on poverty, food security, empowerment of women/youth, etc. are not what stakeholders (including donors) were expecting them to be. (See for example, MIT report by Banerjee, et al 2015 https://economics.mit.edu/files/10475... Given the huge, billions of dollars that have been flowing to such microcredit services (with very high expectation of immediate, positive impact on poverty), such reports even suggested re-consideration of alternative investment options for such money on other anti-poverty programmes (e.g health, education, etc).
Some of the factors contributing to the less than expected impact seem to include targeting errors. Financial institutions have been following ''blanket targeting'' assuming that every poor could be potential enterpreneur if they access finance. Especially for poor risk-averse people, in rural areas, including women, such financial services also need to be accompanied by proper business counselling, skill training, market linkages, etc., which were often absent...The commercialization derive (including high interest charges) of service providers have in fact been over-indebting households. Discontents in microfinance services was enhanced following the CGAP (housed in World Bank) report (2010): Andhra Pradesh 2010: Global Implications of the Crisis in Indian Microfinance https://www.cgap.org/sites/default/files/CGAP-Focus-Note-Andhra-Pradesh…, as well as reports, among others by the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/feb/20/internationalaidanddeve…. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw56/egm/Gobezie-RP-2-EGM-RW-Sep2… reports highlight many reported suicides (committed mainly by women) as a result of failure to repay institutional loan.
At household level, your report very well highlighted the increased labour burden on women, as they try to engage in small business, in addition to their household chores, not shared by their male counterparts... I believe the report should also highlight the increased Intimate Partner Violence many women face as a result of new access to finance (credit) from institutions which do not include some gender awareness for family members...Not all men do welcome their spouses being economically empowered through credit (much less to engage in household labour sharing activities), as they think this threaten their assumed power position with-in the household. Women often struggle to exercise control on credit, as well as on income generated...There is little effort to incorporate gender transformative interventions with such financial services.
One of the important instruments to ensure empowerment of women, enhancing their bargaining power with-in the household, is by enabling them to have control of such resources. In many contexts, especially rural areas of developing countries, enabling women to have control of resources (credit, generated income, etc.) is perhaps as important as (or even more important than) creating the access to credit. Many women who do not feel that they would have such a control would not use the credit (even if available at local level)... Institutional saving services were meant to provide such important tool of enabling women to exercise control. However, these services are very much under-provided by service providers globally (especially in rural areas)...Your report should also expand on this vital service.
Pension savings (saving for old age) are currently becoming even more popular in many countries where microfinance programmes are active providing such highly valued service for poor women. In Bangladesh, for example, wives are customarily younger than their husbands, and women tend to live longer than men. Women must anticipate a long widowhood, a cause of much anxiety. They hope that their children (especially their sons) will care for them, but are often not confident in such an outcome. If they could save up some money for old age, their widow hood could be more dignified. See blog http://cfi-blog.org/2015/05/27/would-you-like-a-pension-with-that/#comm…
I believe this also need to be highlighted, and advocated for.
I hope this helps!
Regards, Getaneh
先生 Getaneh Gobezie