Here is today’s complete transcript, edited for continuity:
10:32 AM
Joseph Robertson (host): Good morning everyone, and welcome to today’s NOW Labz talk on Lending, in connection with the CSW and its focus on ending gender-based violence and structural violence. I would like to welcome a couple of collaborators from Quipu.cc’s sister publication, Cafe Sentido: Webb Tisch and Riga Listin.
Webb Tisch: Thank you, Joseph. I am happy to be part of this event, and I think we have an opportunity to help shed new light on ways in which lending and microlending benefit women and girls in situations of marginalization or political obstruction.
Riga Listin: I want to welcome Webb as well. It is my pleasure to be helping with this week of dialogues, and I would like to add that Sonari Lumi is here with me again today. She participated on Monday, in the education talk.
Joseph: Welcome, Sonari. I want to start by posing a question, and then let each of the people in attendance share their views. Meanwhile, we will also be receiving comment via email, which I will add to the chat.
Question: Is creative, collaborative microlending a vital and necessary aspect of any serious effort to make progress building civil society in historically gender-repressive environments?
Riga: I think it is, and I think Webb’s insights on the dynamics of lending structure will help us make this point. Sonari, what is your view?
Sonari: I actually do think we cannot make serious progress without something like microlending to put women in positions of influence in the very local sphere of influence where their condition is ultimately determined. Family, community, municipality, region.
National policies will follow from what people are already living, I think, more readily than from prescribed changes to what people are living.
Webb: I think Sonari makes an important point. While my writing is mostly about macroeconomic trends, with some focus on transparency, microlending has caught my interest because of what it shows about the false assumptions underlying both of these… 1) big institutions are not necessarily more trustworthy than individuals, and 2) the credit-rating system does not necessarily do a good job “picking winners and losers”; it is too much like a self-fulfilling prophecy and drives people into default. Microlending, on the other hand, operates on mutual trust and reciprocal moral obligation, and that generates a higher rate of repayment.
When we have a dynamic like that, we already have a more sustainable civil society.
Joseph: Very interesting opening! I think this is incredibly important. What Grameen Bank, and its various national subsidiaries, the work of the grassroots anti-poverty organization RESULTS, and Kiva crowd-lending show us is that we can build trust where it has no reason, other than our choice, for existing. We have a couple of comments I want to add here…
Lisbet Zindek wrote, by email, that we cannot view lending institutions of any kind as “gatekeepers” whose decisions determine the degree to which we have “civil society”. We have to consider that civil society is a standard whereby people work together and coexist in non-violent, constructive ways that improve quality of life and augment opportunities. How do we do more to allow women and girls to flourish in environments where that very possibility appears to be barred from discussion?
Webb: Well, that is a very important question. It does seem like we have this problem, whenever we say that a given tool, or activity, or even idea, is instrumental to any process of human liberation: it becomes a de facto gatekeeper. And even more importantly, financial institutions deliberately set themselves up as such; it is part of the culture, even if it is a bit backwards in terms of the practical application of their functional value to society.
Riga: I think we do have ways to bring together the logic of what we were saying with what Lisbet is asking. Specifically: don’t we break gatekeeper concept when we let women do for themselves, create, lead, enterprise and repay, according to their ability and their character?
Joseph: Hi Alex, welcome to the talk. (We are not using video or audio this morning, due to some bandwidth issues, and because several of the participants are together in one room; I am collating and reposting their comments through the Quipu.cc account.)
Alex Pearlman: hello! alright, sorry I’m late.
Joseph: Please feel free to comment at your discretion. One commenter has asked if we can get around the problem of microlending and other financial institutions serving as “gatekeepers” to the empowerment of women.
Alex: i’m a reporter for globalpost, jumping around a number of csw events, here as an observer. that’s a great question.
Joseph: Excellent. We have a group of people here, all commenting through the Quipu.cc account, and we are also taking comments from email and social media, posting the most constructive. Any thoughts?
Sonari: I think the gatekeeper dilemma is a serious one, but I think it is simple to resolve… we need to allow stakeholders to take the lead. As with any good-faith business transaction, the larger, more influential entity needs to have the moral courage to treat the individual human being as a peer. I think that allows us to create structures that are much more conducive to mutual thriving at the local level.
Alex: well, I wonder if there isn’t a necessary “gatekeeper” – whether it’s financial institutions or ngos, or educators, to get the empowerment started, so to speak. but then, the gates are opened, and, as sonari says, the woman becomes a peer of the lender and goes her own way.
Sonari: Thank you, Alex. I like that thinking. We see, consistently, with microlending, that women with little to no means are able to repay at rates far higher than the credit-rated, central-bank-financed, major banking institutions’ business and home loans, in far more affuent places.
Joseph: I think that’s a good point. It is often an impediment to political liberation, where we see the powers that be unwilling to allow stakeholders to have a voice. The absence of stakeholder input breeds / allows for corruption, and that slows progress.
Riga: I am wondering… is there a specific kind of structure that allows for this stakeholder / borrower prioritization to be a constant?
Webb: I think you cannot guarantee anything. As we were discussing earlier, where big institutions seek guarantees, they tend to have lower rates of repayment than with non-guaranteed microcredit loans, and they seem to contribute, through their planning and micromanagement of borrowers accounts, to the eventual default of 10% to 20% of their loans, a fairly high percentage.
Sonari: I really like the insight that where microlending is working, whether it be in Bangladesh or Peru or Nigeria or Uganda, and women in intensely traditionalist patriarchal cultures are becoming local engines of economic activity, they are already becoming leaders, leaving the society around them with little choice but to adjust.
Joseph: Alex, are you hearing anything else like this at other CSW events? What about stakeholder voice, immediate empowerment, etc.?
Alex: this is a very relevant issue within a number of topics, but the one that comes to mind most is peacekeeping/making efforts.
Lisbet: It seems to me we are talking about an important distinction that doesn’t always get fair treatment: structural violence and political degradation are not one dictatorial regime against which we struggle; it is possible for a woman to both be a pioneer and a leader and also to suffer indignities and political degradation. We cannot overlook such situations.
Alex: when outside agents are involved, women rarely make it to the peace negotiating table, and the patriarchal structures in place are often maintained…
Joseph: so, Alex, do you see peacebuilding as part of that, as an area where the involvement of women, the immediate empowerment of women and the act of giving voice to stakeholders, can be more readily engaged? Either because the stakes are higher or because the patriarchal system has, evidently, failed, in that particular case, in that particular place, where peacebuilding is required?
Alex: yes, I do. in the case of liberia, specifically, we saw what can happen when women make it to the peace table. in Afghanistan, women are really pushing to be involved in negotiations, and hopefully that will happen. It’s because the stakes are higher if they aren’t involved – womens and childrens’ issues don’t make it to the forefront if the voices of stakeholders in these issues aren’t present. and it’s particularly concerning when women are shut out, even after much hard lobbying.
Joseph: I have met Malalai Joya, who has taken incredible risks to involve herself in the political life of Afghanistan, and Rose Mapendo, who has been uniquely courageous in returning to parts of the DRC where her family suffered incredible trauma. In both cases, they expressed the idea that women would increase the likelihood of peace, just by becoming new agents of decision-making, not previously present.
Alex: which is a parallel issue to microlending – women are the ones who understand the needs of the communities and are better equipped to meet them.
Joseph: I like that answer a lot, Alex. Thank you.
Alex: look at what happened in liberia and what’s still happening there. it’s the best example.
Joseph: Is it fair to say that this view—that women are more connected to and more insightful about the kind of activities and resources that build and sustain community—can make the difference?
Sonari: I agree with Alex. Liberia is a phenomenal example. It is also a place where we can see that lending was able to be expanded as women’s role in society expanded.
Alex: i believe that’s a large part of it, yes.
Joseph: Does anyone have specific policy recommendations, either from experience or as proposals, that they believe would be worth promoting as a guiding example of how we can integrate 1) women’s role in community, 2) direct empowerment, 3) stakeholder input and 4) lending, to secure a better civil society situation for moving ahead on the political and economic status of women and girls?
Riga: It may be my bias, because it is my focus, but I think the promotion of women in publishing and media, giving more women not only a voice, but a decision-making capacity in the structure of media, through which messages about the structure of society and the power of conventional norms, can be a form of direct empowerment that touches on all four of those areas. We have often talked about the intransigency of media with respect to social justice issues.
Lisbet: I think we can prioritize women as peacebuilders. In line with what Alex was saying earlier, I think we can engineer peace negotiations and post-peace structural planning around a critical mass of women as insight-builders.
Webb: I want to come at this from the financial perspective. Because I think a lot of decision makers, men and women alike, do just that… they cost/benefit proposals and go with what the numbers say is practical… often before any ideals or any forward-thinking proposals… and with lending, the numbers show us that women build a more resilient financial environment and reduce the levels of socio-economic “leakage” that drains value or creates grounds for renewed conflict. That is something to always keep front and center.
Joseph: Alex, as a reporter, do you feel like Riga’s point about media leadership is something to prioritize at the level of policy planning?
Alex: I think it should be one of many priorities. women’s voices in media is a form of empowerment, and a vehicle for furthering it.
however, the media must work hand in hand with women politicians, activists and thought leaders outside the media sphere for a comprehensive solution.
Joseph: Could regular policy meetings involving these different constituencies be a paradigm that helps to drive change? Letting women lead, even using the power of international institutions to instigate that kind of approach?
Alex: I believe that’s what we’ve been trying to do for some time, no? it’s a long, hard battle.
Sonari: I think we have to be careful of the gatekeeper problem. But yes, in a sense, this is a practical approach that could help move us forward, if it becomes one of the central concepts used to ask for decision-making from the local stakeholders in any given scenario.
Joseph: yes, Alex, i do think that’s one of the things that various international institutions have been trying to do, but it seems meaningful that, for instance, the Obama administration, under Sec. of State Clinton, actually established an office for women and girls. http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cwg
Riga: Yes, the CWG was a breakthrough, and I do think it showed somethign important. The US would now require cabinet officials to report specifically on the status of women and girls in the US and abroad, in relation to their standard remit. That’s a breakthrough, but it’s somewhat haunting that we hadn’t done it before.
Lisbet: I like this concept… that top officials of government be required to keep track of the impact of their own departments’ activities on the status of women and girls. If that can be done in a serious way, and with real rigor, then we can accelerate the process of uprooting bad practices and setting up better ones.
Joseph: I think it is worth noting that Kiva prioritizes some of the specifics we have been discussing, in order to achieve their highly effective model:
Family and Community empowerment, Client (stakeholder) voice, and a focus on vulnerable groups: such as refugees, indigenous communities, women under threat, and parentless families.
Riga: I think this is instrumental: If we care about outcomes, we have to care about whom we include, and how and why…
Webb: And we have to think about the specific definitions (of “stakeholder”, for instance) we use to make choices about structure…
Sonari: but utlimately, the policy-making question is about who is in charge of the process and how the policy gets deployed. Can we do it in such a way where “the powers that be” stand aside and devolve power to marginalized groups, to political disempowered women, etc.?
Joseph: I think that is the definitive question. We have some fabulous insights here, and I think we have the basis for another rich, ongoing discussion. As with yesterday’s talk, we will publish the full transcript, as everyone has agreed, and we will invite open comment on the Quipu.cc website, from the transcript posting page, at http://bit.ly/nowlabz-csw-lending
Thanks again, everyone! And please come back tomorrow for our discussion of Participation – voting, political decision-making, community leadership, and some of the other ideas we’ve had in mind this week.
Quipu.cc signing off… until tomorrow…
11:30 AM