Authors: Elizabeth Lynch

“Transforming the Landscape of Leadership in Microfinance: Maintaining the Focus on Women” introduces WWB’s new methodology for helping MFIs support gender diversity at all levels of their institution. WWB has expanded its Women’s Leadership Development Program, which works with individuals, to include a tool that focuses on the challenges and opportunities microfinance institutions face in the attraction, retention, and promotion of qualified women staff members - the Organizational Gender Assessment.

Something decidedly new is on the horizon in Africa since the mid-1990s. Many African economies appear to have turned the corner and have moved towards a path of faster and steadier economic growth. Their performance between 1995 and 2005 has reversed the economic collapses that marked the period from 1975 to 1985, and the stagnation that was rife between 1985 and 1995.

Author: Inez Murray, 2006

Beginning in May 2002, Women’s World Banking (WWB) conducted a study of the effects of gender-related household dynamics on the ability of poor women to grow their businesses. The population chosen for the study was drawn from the Santo Domingo-based clients of ADOPEM, the Dominican Association for the Development of Women.

Authors: Inez Murray and Nadira Barkallil, 2005

This survey provides an in-depth case study of how Moroccan women’s roles and responsibilities impact the growth or non-growth of their businesses. Providing credit to poor women can encourage the financial stability and economic progress of low-income households. But in Morocco as in many countries, gender-based constraints, burdens and responsibilities mean that more than credit is necessary if women are to make progress women in lifting their families out of poverty.

Author: Christina Frank, 2008

This paper provides an overview of the process by which microfinance institutions (MFIs) convert from NGOs into regulated financial institutions—known as transformation—and examines the impact of transformation on a control group of MFIs tracked by WWB over the past five years, giving particular attention to the effect of transformation on MFIs' outreach to low-income women.