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Why Gender Diversity Matters
Gender diversity matters in microfinance. WWB champions gender diversity because we believe that diverse perspectives lead to stronger decisions and healthier, more vibrant organizations. Incorporating women’s voices when designing and delivering microfinance products is particularly important when a majority of clients are women. Equally as important, microfinance clients often speak of the inspiration they derive from seeing powerful women leaders in the organizations that serve them. How best to achieve diversity? The answer lies in leadership and technical skill development of individual, high-potential leaders as well as in organizational transformations to ensure that all women and men work in environments where they can perform, excel and lead.
Featured Publication
“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. Now available in English and Spanish.
Women’s World Banking Partners with ACLEDA Training Center to Enhance Management Quality in Microfinance
27 participants from 15 institutions in 5 countries in the Asia Pacific region came together in Cambodia from January 16 to 21, 2012 for Women’s World Banking’s (WWB) Center for Microfinance Leadership Management Development Program and Training of Trainers (MDP TOT), a 6-day course aiming to develop transformational skills for managers of microfinance institutions (MFIs).
WWB partnered with ACLEDA Training Center (ATC) to host the course. The Center is operated and managed by ACLEDA Bank Plc, Cambodia's leading retail bank. ATC courses are designed for policy makers, Microfinance Institutions, NGOs, Banks and financial sector stakeholders — networks and associations, investors, UN and international development agencies and private funders.
The first part of the MDP focuses on the participants’ understanding of themselves and how they interact with others. The second part is anchored on this self-understanding and introduces tools that build skills in managing people and processes. The course is action-oriented—participants are given the opportunity to immediately test their understanding of concepts and try out emerging skills by simulating actions that they might take in given situations. The simulation, known as the “In Basket Exercise,” draws upon relevant microfinance cases to drive learning.
The second part of the course is the training of trainers. The goal of the TOT is to build and expand the capacity of the microfinance industry as a whole to deliver the MDP as a skill-building course to MFIs in different regions. Over the final two days of the training, participants take on the role of presenters and facilitators. Each trainee receives immediate feedback on how effective they were at presenting the concepts as well as facilitating discussions among the participants in order to further enhance training skills.
Each participant certified as a trainer commits to deliver the course in his or her own institution or network at least once within one year of being trained by WWB.