CONCURRENT PANELS: Transforming Research to Action

Economic Growth with Economic Justice: The Microenterprise Movement as a Path Toward Gender Equity Globally and Locally

The microenterprise movement, both internationally and domestically, has been viewed as an important economic development strategy for achieving gender equity. Using feminist analyses, panelists addressed the extent to which the microenterprise movement historically has fostered gender equity in different political and economic contexts, and for different sectors of the population. Case examples illuminated policy and advocacy issues and research questions.

Moderator: Kate Cloud (Director, Office of Women in International Development, University of Illinois at Urbana)

Participants: Susan Davis (Board Director, Grameen Foundation); Rekha Mehra (Vice President, International Center for Research on Women); Anna Wadia (Senior Program Officer, Ms. Foundation); Madeline Lamour (Senior Program Coordinator, Sister's Lending Circle, Central Brooklyn Federal Credit Union/Central Brooklyn Partnership)

Susan Davis outlined the history of the microenterprise movement in order to provide the context for the ensuing debate. She delineated the various perspectives on microcredit/microenterprise from "microcredit is a panacea" through "microcredit is a tool of capitalism designed to quell the revolution" to what she considers the most balanced perspective, the "yes but" school. This perspective, she argued, is one in which microcredit is seen as effective but only if the state doesn't abdicate its responsibility to provide social services, and only if feminists stay involved.

Rekha Mehra began by saying that she approaches the microcredit issue from a development perspective, and that people interested in development should be interested in microcredit because the vast majority of poor women in the developing world work in the informal sector as self-employed people. She is particularly interested in the issue of sustainability in the face of "scaling up." That is, what does microcredit do in terms of facilitating poor women keeping their enterprises alive and growing. She argued that the next generation of development assistance for women will have to focus on the issue of growth, rather than mere survival.

Anna Wadia turned attention from an international to a domestic context, where the Ms. Foundation has been supporting microenterprise development for over ten years. She uses the term "microenterprise development" rather than microcredit, because for quite some time in the US, there has been a realization that while credit is an important component of what microbusinesses need, they also need training, technical assistance, access to markets, and peer support networks. Though the kind of sophisticated gender analysis embedded within international women and development circles doesn't exist in the US, microenterprise development should be part of a larger economic security strategy for women because women start the majority of new businesses and women-owned businesses are the fastest growing new segment of the US economy. Anna concluded by pointing out that several successful miocroenterprise development programs have also translated the need economic security into public policy advocacy.

Madeline Lamour provided the Sister's Lending Circle as an example of the kind of programming Anna outlined. A collective of women who work together to become financially self-sufficient by creating job opportunities and starting their own businesses, the Sister's Lending Circle is one of many programs at the Central Brooklyn Partnership, an organization that began as a coalition of economic development organizations, churches, and other institutions based in central Brooklyn. The Sister's Lending Circle targets women on public assistance, and those who are part of the "working poor," to participate in a revolving loan fund, convening on a weekly basis to share both their problems and solutions. Since the Sisters' curriculum continues to evolve with the identification of successful strategies in the long process toward economic self-sufficiency, Madeline pointed to the need for foundations to develop long term commitments to this type of work. She also suggested that feminists must approach microenterprise development with the knowledge that women possess assets and strengths, not only needs, because while there will always be needs, what makes the difference in their lives is their strengths.

Several questions were posed from the floor during the discussion session that ensued regarding regulatory issues, the intersection of the microenterprise movement with policy debates such as welfare reform, the dangers of pigeonholing women's work, and the potential for realizing the social justice component of the work within the context of expanding capitalism worldwide. The panelists emphasized that many microenterprise programs are not only trying to create entrepreneurs, but are also focused on building communities and advocating for change at all levels. In this way, the microenterprise movement is really a political movement, one that is embedded within an ever-changing global political economy and that is pushing for structural reform, while simultaneously responding to people's daily needs.

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