Microfinance Industry Going All Out to Regain Lost Glory with Women Power
Thursday, December 8, 2011
HYDERABAD/MUMBAI: Beleaguered microfinance industry is turning to women power to lift it out of the depths. The fairer sex is increasingly occupying the rank and file of recovery agents of lenders to the poor as the industry attempts to restore its past glory after charges of molestation and browbeating made it an unwanted child. “We will push the MFIs to have more women on rolls once the industry, currently in fire fighting mode, comes back to some kind of normalcy,” said Alok Prasad, CEO, Microfinance Institutions Network, an industry lobby group.
“Imbalances need to be addressed to ensure more balanced gender dynamics, which should in turn offer positive results.” Twenty seven-year-old Susheela is one of them. She didn’t know in 2009 that she can succeed in a male-dominated microfinance recovery agents’ force when she quit a children’s rights organisation to join microfinance firm Basix. Today, she is one of those successful ones, though significantly minority , who are most sought after.
“Being a female, I am able to gel well with women borrowers and gender does offer an advantage in the changed scenario,” says Susheela, a graduate in economics, history and political science. The preference for women agents is largely due to a view that domination of loan recovery operations by male agents was the key factor that led to the state blaming the entire industry for becoming a bully.
