Washington
18 July 2008
In many developing countries, micro-financing has createdpossibilities for burgeoning entrepreneurs who would not have foundfunding before. VOA's Barry Wood reports that special attention is nowbeing paid to female entrepreneurs, who have had to overcome culturalbarriers to get financing. (Part 3 of 5)
The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh isa ground breaker. It lends almost exclusively to women. And its smallbusiness loans are almost always paid back.
Nobel Prize-winning Standard
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| Muhammad Yunus |
Muhammad Yunus isthe bank's founder and a hero in his country. Grameen was the first tolend on a grand scale to poor, aspiring entrepreneurs in the developingworld. The venture into microcredit won Yunus and his bank the NobelPeace Prize in 2006.
"It's fantastic news. We are all veryexcited about the good news. It excites everybody in Bangladesh andalso the people who are involved in micro-credit around the world,"Yunus said.
Melissa Carrier, at the University of Maryland, says Grameen's micro-financing has expanded the concept of entrepreneurship.
"CertainlyGrameen Bank has given legitimacy to those kinds of micro-loans tolocal villagers," she noted. "And so the idea of entrepreneurship nowis about doing for yourself. It's about raising chickens, and havingcows, and knitting scarves and being able to feed your family."
Microlending in Kenya
MargaretOkoth runs a market stall in Nairobi, Kenya. She is benefiting fromlow-interest micro-loans from her village cooperative.
"(Thecooperative) has recently increased its limit so that you can borrow80,000 (shillings)," she said. "And if you take out that big a loanyou'll really see your business grow."
In Kenya's post electionviolence, Okoth's stall was destroyed. But coop loans allowed her torebuild - and also balance her business with her other job, as a wifeand mother of 12.
Now, the Grameen model is being promoted by big lenders like the World Bank, in its discussions with developing countries.
African Issues
DahliaKhalifa is a business specialist at the World Bank's InternationalFinance Corporation. She says women in African countries face specialissues.
"Often times we've seen, and there has been someresearch done especially in African countries, that women are not giventhe same consideration as men when they apply for a loan," she said.
Thatwas the case in Egypt. Hoda Galal Yassa is one of Cairo's leadingfemale entrepreneurs. She says women in the Arab world face aformidable barrier.
"Everybody looks at a woman...as a goodsecretary, a good assistant, maybe she can cook very well and makesomething from that," she said. "But to be a business woman,particularly in the industrial field, it wasn't easy or accepted easilyby men."
Yassa started her detergent and other factories with funds from family members.
Women Face Challenges
ElaineAllen, a professor at Boston's Babson College, says access to capitalremains the biggest obstacle female entrepreneurs must overcome,especially in Africa and the Middle East.
"Culturally, they(women) are not able to go into banks and deal with men," she noted."That is a cultural barrier. And what we're seeing is thatmicro-finance is one way to get around this. And also we haverecommended that banks there (in Africa) hire women."
Discrimination against women goes even further, says Dahlia Khalifa of the World Bank.
"Inmany jurisdictions, we're sometimes finding that women are treated aslegal minors, or they're not able to be a full signatory to a contract,or to represent themselves in court," she said.
Overall, thesituation is improving. Men and women entrepreneurs are finding waysto obtain capital. And some governments are beginning to take action tomake it easier to do business.