Reaching and empowering women - Genfinance

BOX 9
Financial action learning system
The tools are flexible and can be adapted and combined in many different ways on two levels:
Group-based market research
Diamonds
Diamond diagrams offer a rapid way of generating local indicators: generic poverty or
empowerment indicators or specific indicators, for example for food security, property ownership or
decision-making. The indicators are grouped in 3-5 levels to rank the population into such
classifications as rich, poor, and very poor. Participants then rank themselves or people in their
community according to the levels or the indicators. They can also compare their current positions
with their situations before they joined a programme, or their target positions after one year or a
specified period of time. Participants identify ways to help those in the most disadvantaged
category obtain access to services and move from one level to the next. Indicators can form part of
‘visions’ on livelihood road journeys (see page 37).
Microfinance providers and groups can use diamonds to identify the poorest and most vulnerable
people; rapidly assess poverty reach and upward mobility; examine the socio-economic
characteristics of people who choose to join (or not join) the MFI – and also those who leave or
whose accounts become dormant – and develop more inclusive products in collaboration with
clients or potential clients.
Seasonality calendars
These calendars provide more detailed, gendered analysis of seasonality in different dimensions of
livelihoods. In this way it is possible to establish, for example, seasonality in cash or food availability,
slack times of the year when extra income generation is feasible, or when cash is likely to be
needed because of sickness or school fees, for example. The calendars can be used at group or
organizational levels to model client cash flow or savings targets, to design specific savings or loan
products, or to indicate grace periods or periods when cash is available and so on. Individual
calendars can be added to livelihood road journeys (see page 37).
Relationship/empowerment circle mapping
Circle maps analyse intra- and interhousehold support networks and power relationships in order to
increase understanding of the dynamics of households and communities. For clients they can be
very useful in identifying and sharing ways of strengthening intrahousehold relationships and support
networks and developing strategies for reducing power inequalities. For MFIs, they can be
quantified to estimate, for example, the incidence of polygamy or of households headed by women,
and to test assumptions about ‘normal’ household composition and relationships – often not the
‘one husband, one wife, two children’ model underlying many questionnaires and regulations. They
can also be used to look at complexities of access to and control of different types of property, to
understand which relationships are important to women, and to examine how groups can be
addressed to strengthen rather than undermine friendships and social networks. Circle maps can be
particularly useful in analysing migration and the links between migrants and those left behind.
Financial access mapping
Financial access mapping uses the same circle diagram tool to brainstorm ideas about where
women and men may get or save cash (family and relatives, informal providers, ROSCAs,
employers, traders, moneylenders, banks, post offices, MFIs and banks), the rates they
charge/offer, and other conditions. This includes discussion of the differences in preferences and
experience between women and men. Such guided conversations may reveal where women are
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