Read full article: Microcapital Brief: Spandana Sphoorty Innovative Financial Services Limited, a Microfinance Institution (MFI) Based in Hyderabad, India, Issu

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Download October's 2009 Ujjivan monthly newsletter on PDF for Ujjivan news including crossing half million customers & receiving the Gold Certificate in Social Performance Reporting award.

Coverage on network member XacBank and its products plus the initiative with Nike Foundation: Small Deposits Add Up: Savings, not just loans, factor into microfinance formula

November 2009 - Women’s World Banking (WWB) is a global network of 40 microfinance institutions (MFIs) working in 28 countries to bring financial services and information to poor entrepreneurs, especially women. The network serves 20 million micro-entrepreneurs, over 70% of whom are women.

Kenya Women Finance Trust wins the 2009 CCA Business Excellence Award for Financing

Read full article Financial Times: Pension Funds Turn to Low-risk Microfinance (subscription required)

The authors are Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn who undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to document the oppression of women and girls, as well as introduce us to extraordinary people dedicated to changing that situation and creating hope.

Please download the PDF newsletter produced by Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation where you can read details of their celebration.

"Women hold up half the sky," write the husband-wife duo, "yet that's mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it's not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty.." Giving a voice to poor women, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential.

On Saturday, July 18, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a stop in Mumbai during her three-day tour of India at the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a WWB network member. Primarily a trade union for undocumented women workers, SEWA provides a wide range of services to its members, including a full range of financial services through SEWA Bank, group insurance, and  skills training. SEWA was founded by Ela Bhatt who is also one of the founders of WWB.

Read article: "Job creation through microfinance important pillar of Pakistan's economy "

We are proud to announce that Kashf Foundation has been awarded the One Women Initiative, which is a public private partnership between the United States Department of State, USAID and the One Women Initiative, to recognize the work of institutions that promote economic equity, justice and women’s participation in the Muslim world.

The Saturday, March 6 New York Times profiled Ela Bhatt, a WWB Board Member and creator of India's first women's bank called the Self-Employed Women's Association, or SEWA.

WWB Board Member Roshaneh Zafar was interviewed for Blue Chip magazine about the Kashf Foundation, the microfinance organization she founded in Pakistan in 1996, one of the first in the region. It now aims to reach over 1 million savers and 350,000 borrowers through 100 branches in the nation.

With the implementation in May 2008 of the Microfinance Act of 2006, Kenya Women Finance Trust has become the first microfinance institution able to accept customer deposits in the country. Previous to this, it was prohibited by law for any microfinance institution there, other than a commercial bank, to take deposits from the general public.