Funding

Banking for African Women

African women produce, process and market more than 60 percent of food in the continent. But they still find themselves without enough financial credit and technical services for their farms and without land they can call their own. The African regional office of Women World Banking doesn't hope to solve this whole problem, but it does hope to extend some concrete financial help to poor rural African women.

      The African regional office was established in March 1985 to decentralize the work of Women World Banking, an eight-year-old, non-profit financial organization based in the Netherlands. A response to Women's Decade efforts to improve the economic status of women. Women World Banking works on three areas: 1) arranging with commercial banks to guarantee loans for women's income-generating activities; 2) arranging technical and managerial assistance for those projects it guarantees; and 3) strengthening the network of women participating in financial decisionmaking in their countries.

       By 1986, Women World Banking had created 29 affiliates in countries throughout the Third World, nine of them in Africa. After the African regional office was set up, the organization signed its first loan guarantees in Kenya and Ghana with Barclays Bank. And the regional office enjoys material and moral support from the African Development Bank, a regional affiliate of the World Bank.

      Women World Banking does not propose any radical changes. It's stated goals are to "promote entrepreneurship among women" and to "draw women into the modern economy." Still, it is no doubt helping out women farmers who previously were overlooked and making institutions focus on women's central economic role.

     The African regional office began publishing a 12-page quarterly newsletter in August 1986.

To get a copy, or for more information, contact:

Women World Banking/Africa

P.O. Box 55919

Nairobi,

Kenya

Getting Money, Against All Odds

For women who constantly get the run-around from funders when you seek money for your project, a recent issue of The Tribune is for you. The first quarter 1986 newsletter of the International Women's Tribune Center provides a thorough overview of the complex world of funding - and explores how women can outsmart the bureaucratic rigamarole.

      Sympathetic to the time-consuming and frustrating task of fundraising, the newsletter explains the different levels of funding and offers some insights into donors' thinking and rationale. It lists in familiar detail some of the typical problems women encounter, drawing on the experience of different women's groups, but emphasizing sensible solutions that can be tailored to fit the needs of your organization. You will also find examples from Colombia, Fiji, and the Caribbean of how women's groups have generated funds locally, thus lessening their dependence on foreign funders. An encouraging note is the recent initiatives to break down barriers between donors and women's projects at the grassroots. There is an extensive bibliography listing how-to manuals, funding directories, policy papers and issues of funding.

To get a copy, contact:

International Women's Tribune Center

777 United Nations Plaza

New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.

Tel: (212) 687-8633