Global Partnerships

Seattle Times on PATH’s work with women in Nicaragua

Flickr, cromacom

Women's rights were a big issue in the Nicaraguan civil war

One of the best ways to fight poverty and inequity is to improve the lives of women and girls, largely because this translates into healthier children and, eventually, wealthier and more stable communities overall.

The Seattle Times‘ Kristi Heim, with photographer Erika Schultz, did a nice job describing a fairly comprehensive and innovative effort by PATH working to improve the lives of Nicaraguan women. When the Sandinistas took control of the country in 1979, many of the leaders said women’s empowerment would be a critical part of the reform planned by the revolutionary government.

Those plans didn’t translate into much meaningful change in this machismo country, as it turned out. In an article for the newspaper’s Pacific Northwest magazine, Heim describes the challenge:

Adolescent pregnancy rates are also high — some of the highest outside Africa. And on average, rural women here have more pregnancies than women in developed countries, making their risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth over the course of their lives seven times greater than it is in the United States. And in rural Nicaragua, where husbands are typically in charge of family decisions, women generally don’t have the choice or the ability to plan when to start having a family or when to stop.

The story focuses to a great extent on PATH’s Nicaragua director Margarita Quintanilla, a woman I met many years ago when I wrote for the Seattle PI about one of their innovative strategies for reaching out to girls and young women with messages of empowerment — soap operas.

As Heim notes, the PATH program has grown in both breadth and scope since then, thanks to funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and partnering with other organizations working in Nicaragua.

Seatte-based Global Partnerships, for example, has been working in Nicaragua for many years providing micro-loans to women. Now, they are partnering with PATH through an organization called Pro Mujer to coordinate the microfinance initiative with programs aimed at providing women with better access to health services, especially emphasizing cervical cancer prevention.

FILED UNDER: Health, Global Partnerships, Nicaragua, PATH

July 5, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By Tom Paulson

Mysterious microfinance firm re-emerges

Flickr, TW Collins

Clay Holtzman, in his new blog Nonprofit Kingdom, notes that a year ago the Seattle microfinance firm Unitus closed its doors, laid off most of its staff and didn’t really tell anybody (including some major donors) why it did so.

Unitus, which had claimed its primary mission was to help poor people, also happened to have made a lot of money — having invested in an Indian company, SKS Microfinance, which had pursued this anti-poverty financing scheme as a for-profit venture.

Here’s a New York Times piece on the controversy about SKS making money while fighting poverty. Here’s what I wrote at the time Unitus closed its doors and a more recent post I did on the broader implications of all the weirdness. Here’s another post from last year that Clay cites as a good overview by Philanthropy Action.

Now, as Clay notes, Unitus has been resurrected as Unitus Labs. Here’s what Clay says:

Many wondered what the new mission would be, and why Unitus had to close so quickly. Unitus recently unveiled its reorganization plan, and while the charity will use a different approach to reduce poverty, its new business strategy appears very similar to the one that sparked an international controversy last year.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Clay Holtzman, Global Partnerships, microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, SKS Microfinance, Unitus

May 11, 2011 | 10:00 AM | By Tom Paulson

Four answers to the question: Does microfinance work?

That, in a nutshell, was the question posed to a panel of microfinance experts at a Seattle forum earlier this week, sponsored by Global Washington and aimed at examining “The global implications of India’s microcredit crisis.”

The answer: Yes and no. Of course.

It’s actually an important, if impudent sounding, question given that microfinance has long been heralded as the most powerful weapon in the fight against poverty. It’s especially interesting in Seattle because this community is one of the leading international hubs of the anti-poverty scheme.

Tom Paulson

From left, Rick Beckett of Global Partnerships, Chris Wolff with Accion Int’l, Peter Bladin of the Grameen Foundation, David Roodman and moderator Steve Davis

I think it’s fair to say microfinance is no longer regarded without question as a panacea for poverty. In fact, as I have written ad nauseum, it is in something of a crisis. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Accion, Center for Global Develop, Chris Wolff, David Roodman, Global Partnerships, Grameen Foundation, microfinance, Peter Bladin, Rick Beckett

May 9, 2011 | 9:00 AM | By Tom Paulson

Has India jinxed microfinance?

Flickr, prolix6x

Indian woman cooking rice

The anti-poverty scheme known as microfinance is in crisis, or maybe several crises.

The political sacking of Muhammad Yunus as head of the pioneering Grameen Bank, allegations of loan-shark profiteering by some microfinanciers and suicides of poor people caught in “debt traps” have led to a drumbeat of negative media stories about microfinance.

The drumbeat is loudest in India where the crisis is most intense. But it has reverberated worldwide, including in Seattle. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Accion, Center for Global Development, David Roodman, Global Partnerships, Grameen Foundation, India, microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, SKS Microfinance

October 26, 2010 | 8:00 AM | By Tom Paulson

Microfinance backlash: Identity crisis, evolution or greedy mission creep?

Seattle is big on microfinance, but what is it?

The short answer is that microfinance is a set of financial services such as small loans for the poor aimed at helping people get themselves out of poverty.

Sounds fairly straightforward, right? In reality, there’s a fight for the soul of microfinance going on and some of that battle has been playing out here at home.

There has been an explosion of “profit-maximizing” microfinance organizations lately which some say threatens to undermine the credibility of this anti-poverty scheme — if not its fundamental social purpose. But the proponents of profit-driven, commercial microfinance say it is the only way to really grow these services, to reach the many millions more in need of help.

Flickr, TW Collins

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Justice, Alex Counts, Ed Bland, Global Partnerships, Grameen Foundation, microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, Rick Beckett, SKS Microfinance, Unitus

October 11, 2010 | 7:00 AM | By Tom Paulson

Microfinance: A new loan on life

Microfinance saved Edelma Altamirano’s life.

I had lunch on Sunday with Edelma Altamirano, who lives in León, Nicaragua, but is visiting Seattle because she’s the featured speaker at Global Partnership’s Business of Hope luncheon on Tuesday at the Westin Hotel.

Tom Paulson

Global Partnerships Mary Herrick and Edelma Altamirano, smashing crab

We ate at the Crab Pot at Pier 57, where she got to wear a paper bib and hit massive crab legs with a wooden mallet. Mary Herrick and Ana Maria Echeverria, both with Global Partnerships, were showing her around. It was a warmish, moist day full of tourists and kitsch.

Altamirano’s story — which you will have to go to the Tuesday event to hear in full — is the difference between microfinance that’s about money and microfinance that’s about people.

Nothing against money. Poor people would like more of it, which is what microfinance is supposed to be aimed at accomplishing.

But there’s lot of confusion lately around this exploding field of micro-lending, which includes other equally ill-defined, seemingly interchangeable terms such as “microcredit” and “microloans.” Continue reading →