More Than a Loan: Investing in Holistic Approaches to Microfinance

The following is a guest post from Betsy Perdue, Chair, Women’s Opportunity Network:

Tomorrow, I will be participating in a panel with two other Opportunity International supporters at the Chicago Global Donor Network’s 6^th annual conference, “Opportunity in Tough Times.”  Our panel is titled “More than a Loan: Investing in Holistic Approaches to Microfinance.” Recognizing that poverty is a multi-faceted problem, the microfinance industry is increasingly combining microloans with other products and services that provide additional security and opportunity for people living in poverty around the world.

Irene Pritzker, Susan Gillette and I will be discussing the value-added microfinance products that Opportunity provides, as well as the importance of partnerships in the work we do. Irene will talk about Opportunity’s new partnership with her IDP Rising Schools, which boosts the development of existing, but very poor private schools for disadvantaged children in rural and urban areas throughout Ghana.  IDP hopes to build a sustainable, holistic, educational model that can be supported through microfinance loans and capacity building, and replicated throughout the developing world.

Savings is another microfinance product that I believe offers the most hope for a future without poverty. The thing that is so cool about savings is that it IS the ultimate value-add — the ultimate in holistic empowerment, the ultimate in multipliers, the ultimate in partnerships. Giving the poor access to savings not only provides them with a cushion, but enables them to capitalize their own communities. Opportunity banks use these accumulated savings to provide business loans to other people in their community, thereby increasing economic development. People living in poverty become equal partners in their own transformation using their own capital.

To hear an archived recording of our panel discussion, visit Chicago Public Radio’s Chicago Amplified. Also, be sure to catch the afternoon closing keynote with Paul Rusesabagina, real life hero of the acclaimed movie, Hotel Rwanda. Today, he serves as president of the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, which works to prevent future genocides and raise awareness of the need for a new truth and reconciliation process in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region of Africa. I’m sure he will provide inspiration to all who care deeply about our brothers and sisters in Africa.