In my article Financial inclusion: what will banks do? I came up with a number of propositions that I thought would work for banks if they are serious about financial inclusion. On gender I stated that “we expect banks to come up with gender-based financial inclusion strategies”. Since then, there has been an outcry from gender activists, the main issue being why financial inclusion for women was given just a single statement in the whole discussion.
MUNYARADZI NYAKWAWA
I admit I did not do justice to gender regarding this topic. I actually know that women in Zimbabwe are more financially excluded than men. I have realised that women entrepreneurs have faced more difficulties in accessing formal financing, yet they are the drivers of welfare improvement.
Women as welfare custodians I would want to argue that it’s high time we had private and public partnerships that are aimed at reducing exclusion in women. Investing in women in Zimbabwe is investing in a generation. I have always observed from an early age in Chitungwiza how women are inclined to invest their money back into the welfare of their families. As such, all organisations interested in improving welfare in this country should start with reducing exclusion in women. Financial inclusion for women carries a triple benefit that extends to future generations.
Every man, including me, would admit that at the family level, our wives are the chief financial managers, ensuring intra-household (obviously inter-household will get us killed) resource allocation to meet recurring expenditure and furthermore, saving to invest in and protect our families’ future. If women can do this at home, why are they financially excluded?
As a country, we have tried to attract foreign direct investment, but not much is coming. I guess our solution is in women-led small enterprises that have family welfare at heart. If family welfare is improved, so is community welfare and it cascades to the economy. In recovering economies small enterprises are widely acknowledged as an important engine for economic growth. However, their lack of access to finance has always been a drawback in their attempt to spur employment and economic development.
Women as the domestic savers As stated above, women will save to ensure that the future of the family is protected. Their savings have often helped smoothen the cash flow in the households. Most women have been saving informally and their savings having been exposed to risk. It’s also sad to note that the country statistics show that the nation is not saving, yet we have institutional savers in savings clubs.
We know the majority of our women in Zimbabwe are members of some sort of a savings club. The most common type of savings being rotating savings association “round” or savings groups. These come in the form of grocery savings groups and even cooking utensils savings groups. some have even gone further to other household furniture and travel parties. There are also the burial societies, rotating savings and credit association (RoSCA) or “maround” and accumulating savings & credit associations (Asca) or “mukando”. There are a number of these informal savings clubs by women because none of them offers what the member wants in totality. Group members would want to join a group of like-minded people, but the risk is still there. Partnerships are now needed to encourage these enterprising women to save formally. Formal savings offer security, safety, reliability, liquidity and privacy. Formalising promotes a measurable domestic savings and domestic savings in formal channels promote domestic investment.
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Policy recommendations to financially include women I sincerely hope these recommendations will incite debate on national financial inclusion policy and help bring about a gender sensitive national policy. Policy champions — financial inclusion policy environments in sub-Saharan Africa are considered to be gender insensitive. Here is an opportunity for Zimbabwe to be the first country to craft a gender sensitive National Financial Inclusion Policy. How do we do it? We need advocates, champions who can bring awareness to policymakers, legislators, directors, ministries and stakeholders, on the challenges that women are facing and expose the opportunities that follow the inclusion of women in Zimbabwe. The champions could start with the financial services sector, with the central bank at the top. As the apex bank, it can support the implementation of bank self-check tools — as was done in Zambia. This tool will encourage banks to check whether their financial products and services address women’s needs in the same way as those of men. This tool should be able to measure if there is a gender disparity regarding access to finance.
The second recommendation will be to push for operationalisation of the current constitution as it has removed impediments and has allowed space for innovation to allow greater financial inclusion for women. We already have four mobile money operators, but we all appreciate that just opening an account and cashing in and cashing out is not financial inclusion. Women need to be able to save, buy insurance, pay for goods and services, and access loans on their accounts without the hustle of having to bring the spouse along in order to have access to the above.
Third recommendation is to encourage the central bank and the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe to continue stimulating and encouraging innovation. They have been able to balance prudential regulation with openness to innovation. Consider new products that have been launched to the market and new delivery channels which need to undergo a thorough assessment of risks and benefits. We now have agent banking and deposit taking micro-finance institution, thus allowing non-bank participation and new models of transactions for loans, loan disbursement, loan repayments, savings, payments, transfers and insurance and assurance. The bank has permitted an award-winning savings product that is combined with a loan product tailored for the bottom of the pyramid that is accessed through the mobile money channel. The savings product is good enough to accommodate all the savings clubs that any woman can think of; it brings security, safety, accessibility and convenience and ultimately welfare improvement.
Policy makers, regulators and other stakeholders have a crucial role to play in supporting the development of schemes that promote financial inclusion for women in Zimbabwe.
Munyaradzi Nyakwawa is a digital financial services consultant and financial inclusion analyst. He can be reached on [email protected] or on LinkedIn
