The Great Debate UK
Saving children’s lives – the GAVI Alliance pledging conference for immunisation
What: Live Webcast of Press Conference after the GAVI Alliance pledging conference for immunisation
Date: 13th June, 2011
Time: 1.30pm to 2.00pm BST
Run Time: Approx 30 mins
Join us for a live press conference following the “Saving children’s lives – the GAVI Alliance pledging conference for immunisation” event, with Bill Gates, Prime Minister David Cameron, Secretary of State Andrew Mitchell and senior Ministers from Norway (Tore Godal), Sweden (Gunilla Carlsson), United States, Canada, the European Union and Rwanda.
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Transformative power of microfinance for women
- Sheetal Mehta is CEO and founder of not for profit organization Shanti Microfinance. The opinions expressed are her own. You can follow her on Twitter. Reuters will host a “follow-the-sun” live blog on Monday, March 8, 2010, International Women’s Day. Please tune in.–
The women of the world still get the rawest deal. Throughout history, in places where life is tough for everyone, women still on average work for longer hours and take on the burden of the household chores. In its Human Development Report, the United Nations Development Programme reported that 70 percent of the people living on less than $1 dollar (65 pence) per day are women.
Development specialists have known for a long time that increasing the income of women is essential to poverty alleviation. All over the world women have been shown to spend more of their income on their households than men, so that when they are helped, the lot of the whole family is improved.
One of the biggest problems preventing poor women from improving their position is a lack of access to credit. If you are living on two dollars a day this doesn’t mean that you are paid this amount every morning.
One day you might get five, then receive nothing for three days. Income and outgoings are unpredictable; emergencies crop up. The poor need credit more than anyone else – and yet half of Indian rural households are denied formal loans.
That is why micro-finance is so essential – small loans of $20 to $50 dollars a day- have transformed life for many of the poorest. Ever since Muhammad Yunus loaned a Bangladeshi woman $27 to start a business in the mid-seventies, it is estimated that micro-finance has given 100 million people access to financial services.
Microfinancing would never have been a success without women. Investors have found that women’s repayment rates are typically superior to men, which has been essential in making the schemes viable.
