What did our evaluation tell us about our impact for women in East Africa? Part 2

This blog post was written by our Programmes and Systems Manager, Hannah Wichmann.
Five Talents recently conducted an independent evaluation of our work in Kenya to learn more about the impact of our work there.

As we mentioned in last month’s post, women are at the heart of our programmes, in fact over two-thirds of Five Talents’ beneficiaries are female. So during our evaluation finding out as much about how our programmes impact women was critical. We know that in Kenya, just 34% of women have a bank account compared to 50% of men.

During the evaluation, we visited groups where we asked members to raise their hands if they owned a business. There was a clear trend. Significantly more men raised their hands than women. We then asked the women who didn’t have their hands raised, what their businesses were.

Margaret, one of the members in Nakuru in Kenya told us that whilst she doesn’t have a business, she did borrow a loan to buy chickens and sells their eggs to pay for the school fees of her two grandchildren who she cares for. She then added that she doesn’t think of it as a business because she didn’t think it was big enough. In fact, this was true for many of the women we met - they didn’t recognise themselves as the entrepreneurs and small business owners that they are.

Using the evaluation, we’re going to help women benefit even more from our work. One of our aims is to improve the training our female members receive. We know that small changes such as adapting the language used can make a big difference. By avoiding words such as ‘business’ and instead use terms such as ‘income generating activity’, we will see an even greater impact for the women we support.  

This will help women, in particular, to continue building on what they already have - small businesses, relationships with each other, a small amount of savings. And we know from over a decade of experience that with this training, these resources can accumulate to a lot. Over £16M in small loans to be exact!

As women have invested these loans, they’ve begun to earn more and in turn, this gives them greater decision making power in the home. Over eighty percent of women told us that relationships in their households had improved since they joined the programme. By helping women to save and grow their businesses, we expect this to grow even further.

If you want to find out about what else we found during the evaluation click here

This evaluation was made possible through the generous support of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Commercial Education Trust. We are extremely grateful to the Trust for their support of this project.

Financial exclusion of women is a global issue but how will our microfinance programmes help? Part 1

This blog post was written by our Engagement & Finance Officer, Sasha Watterson.

Empowering women through microfinance is at the heart of what we do. 70% of the worlds poor are female. What’s more, studies have found that internationally, women are more ‘financially excluded’ than men. This isn’t just a developing world issue; studies in the US and Europe have shown women are more likely to be financially excluded (less able to take a loan for example) than men [FinMark Trust, 2016].

In 2012 the State of Microcredit Summit Campaign Report found that of microfinances’ reach, 82% of the very poorest were women. Too many women struggle to access financial services - even the most basic, like a safe place to save.

We know that financial exclusion is a major issue for women worldwide; women and girls comprise half of the world’s population but own only 1% of the wealth. [Advocates For Youth].  We see the result of this inequality in the lives of our clients. Before joining our microfinance programmes, many of our female clients were forced to rely on their husbands, fathers, or brothers when they needed money. They had no control over their finances, meaning they had no control over their futures. For women in poverty, microfinance offers an opportunity they have never had before.

But is all this empowerment having an effect? It’s easy to say the work we do is empowering but how empowering? Could we be doing better? All of these questions (and many more!) led to the decision we needed to independently evaluate our programmes - so that’s exactly what we did (and in next month’s post we will tell you what we found!).

Women’s empowerment through sustainable microfinance is important, not only because it offers a route out of poverty, but also because it addresses problems of inequality. Research has found that women farmers are responsible for 60-80% of food production in low-income countries, but, globally, own less than 20% of agricultural land - and less than 5% of the world’s titled land [Advocates for Youth]. Giving women the chance to build and scale their own businesses is an effective way to deal with this inequality.

Research has also shown that women are more reliable when it comes to repayments, which is important when our clients are borrowing from a communal savings pot!

Providing access to financial services when accompanied by business training, increases women's’ decision-making power in the household and improves their socio-economic status in the community. In essence, for our female clients, it’s all about respect and self-empowerment. In our opinion, women and microfinance are a great combination!

And what’s more, the benefits aren’t limited to the women themselves. Studies have shown that women are more likely to invest extra income on the children’s education. Research has shown that when the mother controls the household’s budget, a child’s chances of survival increases by 20%.  [Journal of Health Communication]. Whenever we ask our clients what difference the programme has made, the answer is normally simple: “now my children can go to school.”