At a session titled “Professional Women’s Networks and Women’s Leadership in Financial Inclusion,” Mariana Martinez of FinEquity, a platform hosted by CGAP that promotes women’s financial inclusion, described the platform’s new Spanish-language arm, FinEquityALC. FinEquityALC focuses on Latin America and the Caribbean, serving as a pilot project that could lead to FinEquity establishing other regional projects. The goals of FinEquityALC are to improve public policy that impacts women’s financial inclusion as well as financial products and financial education that are targeted at women. Its 1,100 users span 250 institutions.
Barbara Magnoni of Andares and EA Consultants described how Andares connects 400 Spanish-speaking women who work in financial inclusion in 19 countries. Of these women, about half work for financial services providers (FSPs), with the rest representing investors, service providers and other organization types. The average user has about 10 years of experience in the sector.
Andares organizes networking and training opportunities in a range of formats, recognizing that women often have busy family schedules that compound the difficulty of finding time to access these resources during the workday. These opportunities include: in-person and online education, international exchange programs, scholarships for third-party training programs, and asynchronous networking via platforms such as WhatsApp.
Maritza Ivón Pereda Ontón, who works for Symbiotics in Mexico, described her experience with Andares. Her peer interactions on the platform inspired her to talk to her employer’s human resources department about the low ratio of women to men working at her office. She found that Symbiotics was working with a consultant to get more women into leadership positions. Ms Pereda also received a scholarship from Andares to attend a program at the Boulder Institute of Microfinance, which she found to be very valuable.
Laura Elena Rosado of AXA said she has found Andares to be a safe space to share challenges and for younger participants to find role models. During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, Ms Rosado said there was a great deal of discussion on Andares of how to support women clients who were struggling to continue to repay their microloans. More broadly, she described the importance of helping more women grow into leadership roles – one reason being that subtle forms of bias are part of “almost every financial product.”
Njideka Nwabueze of Nigeria’s Sterling Bank noted that there is a surge now in women taking leadership roles in banks in Nigeria. Echoing Ms Rosado, she predicted that this trend will result in products that better meet women’s needs. Regarding the importance of developing the careers of women staff, Ms Nwabueze noted that women agents in her department performed better than men when she was working at Access Bank. As for networking and training opportunities, she cited the work of the NGO Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ). The goal of WIMBIZ is to “inspire, empower and advocate for greater representation of women in leadership positions both in the public and private sector.” Its programming includes coaching sessions for potential leaders, online events on topics such as building a personal brand and mentoring for future board members addressing ethics and other elements of corporate governance.
Looking forward, Ms Magnoni expressed concern about financial services providers moving to digitize, given that technology is a field that is even more male-dominated than finance. She also noted the trend in younger employees looking for work-life balance, arguing that the microfinance industry has a bad track record in this regard.
“If you believe in women as clients,” she asked, “how can you not believe in them in your company? If clients don’t see women working in your office, they may question your belief. You may lose women clients as a result.”
This feature is part of a sponsored series on European Microfinance Week 2021, which took place online November 17 through November 19. The event is held annually by the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP). MicroCapital has been engaged to promote and report on the conference each year since 2012.
Additional Resources
European Microfinance Week 2021
https://www.e-mfp.eu/european-microfinance-week-2021
MicroCapital coverage of European Microfinance Week, including the European Microfinance Award
https://www.microcapital.org/category/european-microfinance-week/
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