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Updated August 9, 2001
Building Better Lives: Sustainable Integration of Microfinance with Education in Child Survival, Reproductive Health, and HIV/AIDS Prevention for the Poorest Entrepreneurs,
Click here to download the paper as a
word document.
Click here to download the paper as a pdf file. The Challenge The problems of the poor go well beyond money or things. They suffer a broader syndrome of disadvantage. Access to financial services is powerful because it offers people opportunity-a greater range of options to change their lives. But credit, even combined with other financial services, addresses one factor constraining the poor-lack of liquidity-only one of many factors constraining the poor. Just as they have been bypassed by formal banking and other financial institutions, the poor have little or no access to education, health and other services to build their "human capacity." The diversity of needs of the poor are reflected in the seven distinct but interlocking goals of international development established by the agreements and resolutions of the world conferences organized by the United Nations in the first half of the 1990s:
All seven contribute "toward a world free of poverty and the misery it breeds." All recognize the need to provide greater support to women in their productive and reproductive roles, both as key beneficiaries of development services and as central players in using them to build human (physical and mental) capacity in their families and communities. Very poor women-especially in rural areas-face tremendous obstacles: social and geographic isolation, illiteracy, lack of self-confidence, limited entrepreneurial experience and major health and nutrition problems for themselves and their families. Addressing these obstacles (if only to cultivate better financial-service clients) requires improving people's social support networks and their personal and communal knowledge, skills and health practices, as well as access to good-quality services to support good health, food production, cash income and asset accumulation. It is well appreciated that increasing income and assets alone is a relatively slow and insufficient strategy for combating many serious ills, such as child malnutrition, the spread of HIV/AIDS and women's lack of choice in determining the number and timing of pregnancies. Education can be a powerful partner of financial services, particularly if education engages individuals as decision-makers in their own learning-for personal and communal change and for informed use of whatever good-quality services are available. *Portions of this paper were based on drafts by Barbara MkNelly, Christian Loupeda, Beth Porter, Bob Richards, Kathleen Stack, Didier Thys, and Ellen Vor der Bruegge of Freedom from Hunger and by staff of BRAC, FUCEC-Togo and PRO MUJER. Very supportive assistance in the design and editing of this document from Anna Awimbo and Sam Daley-Harris of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Secretariat is also gratefully acknowledged. |
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