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February 13, 2012 - February 18, 2012
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April 16, 2012 - April 20, 2012
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June 18, 2012 - June 21, 2012
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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.
Advanced Leadership Workshop, Philadelphia, USA March 1 to 5, 2010
The Advanced Leadership Workshop, aimed at senior executives from the top 200 MFIs worldwide, was the first of the senior leadership programs designed and delivered by the Center for Microfinance Leadership at Women’s World Banking. The program brought together 22 microfinance leaders from 14 countries and leading faculty from Wharton Business School and other graduate programs of the University of Pennsylvania to address critical leadership development and industry issues including strategic thinking, decision making, scenario planning, and organizational change.
Through a unique combination of action learning and the latest research on leadership strategies and techniques in extraordinary times, this program helped participants to build a network of support that will lead to sustainable growth for themselves, their institution and the microfinance industry. Five participants were graduates of Women’s World Banking’s Women in Leadership Program and many will go on to participate in the first ever Coaching Program kicking off with a three day workshop in Oxford, England in June 2010. Offering an integrated set of programs to individuals and the institutions they represent is part of the Center for Microfinance Leadership’s unique strategy for driving change at the personal, organizational and industry levels.
In the words of a Faisal Malik, Director of Technology at Kashf Foundation in Pakistan, “the whole concept of WWB’s initiative of Center for Microfinance Leadership is simply amazing and is the need of the hour in order to take microfinance sector to the next level.”
The workshop was featured in the Financial Times and the Microfinance Monitor.