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Women, Justice and Gender Equality

I want to make a relatively brief speech on the contribution of microfinance in addressing poverty and in promoting women’s empowerment. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on microfinance, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to share my enthusiasm for this important poverty reduction measure, which helps the very poorest in society. Many Members will have visited various projects—reference was made to such a visit earlier—but to set my speech in context, I want to describe one that I visited not so long ago in Kibera, which is the biggest slum in Africa, with more than 1 million people. I visited a market there where a very happy lady had a market stall that was crammed with sacks full of beans. One aspect of microfinance is taking out very small loans, often of less than £50. This lady started with such a loan and bought one bag of beans. She sold it, repaid her loan, made a profit and bought more beans. By the time that I visited the market stall, she had at least 20 bags of beans. Her profit is clearly growing, and it is making an enormous contribution to her family. In recognition of international women’s day and the important link between women’s empowerment and microfinance, I tabled early day motion 1036, which focuses on microfinance in developing countries. I ask Members who support this enabling approach to poverty reduction to consider signing it today, before it is too late. Today’s debate is of course focused on the UK, and just yesterday, I heard a presentation by a microfinance institution in this country, so I thought this a marvellous opportunity to spread the word and highlight the potential for more support for such institutions in our own country. The presentation was given at a meeting hosted jointly by the all-party parliamentary groups on microfinance and on sex equality, the chair of the latter being the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan). We focused on microfinance’s actual and potential impact in promoting gender equality, and we heard about examples of microfinance in Asia and Africa—and in the east end of London. Microfinance is the provision of financial services to those who are traditionally excluded because of their economic position in society. Such services include providing small collateral-free loans to set up a business, providing access to saving accounts, remittances and insurance, and business support and training. It is essentially a hand-up, rather than a hand-out, approach to development, and is widely held to promote women’s empowerment. It is used primarily by women; in fact, 86 per cent. of the 113 million clients worldwide are women. Access to financial services is therefore having a real impact on the lives of women and their families, and on local communities across the world. Impoverished people, particularly women, are able to overcome poverty through the provision of credit to build up income-generating activities. Women are more likely than men to spend income directly on the family. I asked women in several different African countries what difference microfinance had made to their lives. They said that it had provided them with enough food and shelter, but they also said, ““It enables me to keep my children at school for longer.”” That is so important, and there are also various health spin-offs. Research shows that this is as true in the UK as anywhere else in the world. The UK institution that I learned about yesterday is called Street Cred. It is a microcredit project in east London that links access to finance with tailored business support, and it is delivered through a peer group model adapted from the Grameen bank, in Bangladesh. It was set up in 1999 by Quaker Social Action, a regeneration charity that is working with communities in the east end. The Grameen bank in Bangladesh was set up by Muhammad Yunus, and we celebrated greatly when he won the Nobel peace prize last year for his contribution to microfinance. Muhammad Yunus recognised that women wishing to start a small business were being denied that opportunity because of a lack of accessible and affordable credit. The peer group model used by Street Cred in our own east end involves setting up small groups or borrowing circles, with four or so members. When a group member applies for a loan, the other members of the group participate in approving the application. If one client does not repay, no more loans are issued to the group, so there is much group pressure to repay. Solutions are often found through sharing knowledge and experience in the group. Street Cred offers a great deal of business support. Its experience shows that the impact of being in an all-women environment affects their ability to take risks, to share and to flourish. That is why it is an all-women project. We have heard about barriers this afternoon, and my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) mentioned that women make up only 14 per cent. of business owners in the UK. They face significant barriers, some—but not all—of which can be overcome quite simply. We have spoken a lot about child care and caring responsibilities. Those are complex barriers and we need to do so much more to address them. But lack of confidence and business knowledge are other barriers, as are lack of access to affordable finance and feeling excluded from mainstream business support services. In certain circumstances, it is recognised that women are more fearful of debt than men. Women in this country are twice as likely to live in poverty as men and have more to risk by coming off benefits. We have spoken a lot today about glass ceilings, but I wish to redress the balance slightly by considering the position of the very poorest in our community.