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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.
Video: Women’s Leadership Exchange
WWB’s second annual Women’s Leadership Exchange for Microfinance was held from December 1 to 5, 2008 in Nairobi, Kenya and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Participants, all of whom are graduates of WWB’s Women in Leadership Workshop, included a group of 8 senior and mid level managers from WWB’s African network member institutions.
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The short video produced during the exchange with the support of McGraw Hill follows the participants as they meet with fellow microfinance professionals and women leaders in Ethiopia and Kenya. During individual interviews, the participants also express in their own words their dreams and aspirations as leaders and discuss some of the challenges that women face in their leadership journeys from access to education and acceptance by family and society to cultural gender roles and how to build self-confidence.
The participants also describe the personal and professional impacts of participating in WWB’s women’s leadership development programs. In the words of Annet Nakawunde Mulindwa, Head of Operations for Uganda Finance Trust, “meeting these powerful ladies, especially in Kenya, changes the way I look at things…I’ve learned to believe that the sky is the limit.”
This exchange was part of WWB’s broader commitment to building the current and future women leaders of the microfinance industry.