Network for Africa: Investing in girls & women for long-term change

What is the best way to help people lift themselves out of poverty? By investing in girls and women. This is Network for Africa’s vision. Through our work in Africa we know that when you give women training and a small amount of capital to start their own businesses, the whole community benefits. As a result, children are fed and sent to school, and women begin to gain respect, meaning that the path for the next generation will be easier. Our projects show that by investing in women, we unlock the potential of the unheard half of the population, allowing them to contribute fully to society and the economy.

A woman in Rwanda making beads from paper,

for necklaces that are sold through Network for Africa's Aspire program

As one of the women we work with put it:

Now that I am earning money even the shopkeepers have confidence in me. They will give me credit and know that I will pay it back because I am earning money. I have earned respect in the community. They say, “Those are the working women.”

Marking paper to cut and make into beads

Cut strips of paper ready to be rolled into beads

Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, agree. Kristof and WuDunn were interviewed on the CNN show Global Public Square this past Sunday. They were also joined by Zainab Salbi, the founder of Women for Women International.

WuDunn pointed out that, when given microfinance loans, women have a higher repayment rate than men:

Microfinancing institutions like Grameen and BRAC, which basically started [microfinancing] in Bangladesh, they didn't want to be discriminatory, so they wanted to give to men and to women. But they found that women were just repaying at much higher rates than men. They were losing money by giving micro loans to men. So they've now switched to 97 percent of lending to women.

In addition to higher repayment rates, women are more likely to generate wider social benefits with their businesses. Salbi told a story about a woman who used her training and small loan to start a soap-making business. Salbi observed of the woman and her husband:

She changed the relationship from she gives him all the money and he spends it on his alcohol and cigarettes and prostitution or weapons. And now she reversed it. Now he goes and works and brings her the money and they manage it together to send their kids to school, get better housing and better life's conditions for both of them.

As Salbi pointed out, this is not just about making money, but also about changing social patterns. This is long-term change. And this is what Network for Africa is about.