Microfinance, gender and empowerment : meeting practical and strategic needs among low-income women

Abstract

With the international community rallying behind microfinance's uplifting performance, microfinance has become nothing more than a mirage, distorting the realities of its empowering impacts. With poverty concentrated among women, microfinance has been proposed as a mechanism to empower low-income women. As the evidence of three prominent microfinance institutions (BRAC, Pro Mujer and FUCEC) in the Third World suggests, microfinance initiatives have been unable to move beyond meeting women's practical needs and have failed to address discriminatory practices inflicted upon women and the power imbalance that prevents women from accessing capital in the first place. The evidence also indicates that microfinance will be unable to empower Belizean women, where microfinance initiatives are relatively less pervasive and developed.