ACPSP: Gender Equality Network

Women, Poverty and Microfinance - The Role of Parliamentarians

Inventory of Initiatives in Favour of Microfinance

Participants in a microcredit project near Bamako

Benin
Women parliamentarians are mobilizing to intensify their advocacy for active political and economic participation of women, with a focus on education (more …)

Burkina Faso
The strategic development plan of Parliament was made gender sensitive and gender budgeting training will be undertaken shortly in Parliament (more …)

Burundi
Control of governmental action through oral questions posed to government members in National Assembly debates (more …)

Nigeria
See how to collaborate with other Parliamentarians especially in Africa and the developed countries in other to share with them their experience on this subject matter (more …)

Rwanda
The women parliamentarians of Rwanda are very active in lobbying and raising awareness among women on the use of existing savings and loan mechanisms in Rwanda (more …)

Senegal
In collaboration with the Ministry in charge of microfinance and women’s entrepreneurship, funds have been allocated in each region throughout the country (more …)

Sudan
SDA has mobilized women in Khartoum, River Nile and Gedaref to form savings and credit groups and facilitated community resource mobilization in terms of savings, lending and private fund raising (more …)

Other Countries
In Malawi and South Africa, public works programs provide a significant amount of income at the micro level (more …)

The Role of Parliamentarians

The actions proposed by participants can be grouped in three categories relative to the role of parliamentarians: advocacy, oversight and raising awareness of populations.

Participants were unanimous on the following:

• Parliamentarians are on the ground and are constantly challenged by constituents. They thus have an important role to play in raising awareness and orienting people, and women in particular, towards microcredit. The training of parliamentarians is of primary importance, since many MPs, even the most engaged, remain badly informed;

• It is crucial to seize the opportunity of the International Year of Microcredit to tackle the Millenium Development Goals and poverty reduction, targeting particularly rural women, who remain most vulnerable, by extending microcredit to the areas where it does not go;

• With decentralization, each “commune” is setting up a development plan, which could possibly include microcredit projects. Oversight of MFIs could improve at the local level thanks to decentralization policies;

• NGOs have been championing microcredit for over twenty years. They are thus delighted by the present political interest for the issue. Parliament is key in pressuring the State to widen the microfinance market;

Taking into account the above point, participants committed to the following concrete action points for 2005:

Benin : Parliament will question the government on the participation of members of Parliament on the National Committee on Microcredit and will invest itself in this Committee and its actions. The Parliament will follow closely the execution of the relevant laws and will question the government as to the Bamako Action Plan.

Burkina Faso : In order to reach rural women, a microfinance pilot project will be set up, in collaboration with a qualified civil society organization which will serve as executing agency; Parliament will ensure orientation and oversight. Moreover, Parliament will formalize the Gender Network, into which the WWGG will be subsumed.

Senegal : A Parliamentary Day on Microfinance will be organized on an annual basis, with a technical and thematic content in order to increase knowledge of the MPs on the subject and to spur their action.

Background: Videoconference for West Africa

Gathered by videoconference in July 2005, parliamentarians from Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal have committed to concrete actions in favour of microfinance, in order to mark the International Year of Microcredit as declared by the UN, as well as the one year anniversary of the Bamako Workshop on the theme of « Women, Poverty and Microfinance - the Role of Parliamentarians », organized by the Gender Equality Network of the Africa-Canada Parliamentary Strengthening Program.

In Bamako, the participants (from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda and Senegal) had discussed the role of parliamentarians and had come up with a detailed action plan. One year later, the time was ripe to reexamine the action plan, take inventory of actions undertaken and revisit Parliament's role in facilitating microcredit and ensuring it benefits the poor and women.

This videoconference was the first in a series on gender issues organized by the Parliamentary Centre with support from the World Bank Institute.