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And ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES 3. Jordan and Lebanon are classified by the World Bank as medium-income countries. Egypt is classified as a low-income country while the West Bank and Gaza’s economy has been devastated by the ongoing violence, internal blockades, curfews, and closures. But the economies of all these places have two things in common: a large gender discrepancy in earned income and a high cost of living compared to family income and inflation rates. As her daughter watches, a mother bakes bread for her tiny business, which she runs by participating in a Save the Children microfinance program in the West Bank. PHOTO: MICHAEL BISCEGLIE In the Middle East as well as in the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union, Save the Children is a regional leader in woman-focused microfinance, helping mothers earn income from their tiny businesses in order to better provide for their children. Our signature innovation, Group Guaranteed Lending and Savings, is a proven poverty lending strategy. We also build local microfinance institutions to promote self-sufficiency, strengthening their ability to provide small initial loans—from $30-$250—to groups of women, who then guarantee each other’s loans in order to qualify for additional loans. Loan repayment rates in all our Middle East Group Guaranteed Lending and Savings microfinance programs are at 96 percent or higher. GROUP GUARANTEED LENDING AND SAVINGS: Growth and Success for Some of the World’s Poorest Mothers and Children Performance Indicator 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Active clients 19,000 55,800 76,400 90,000 140,000 175,000 Children benefiting 76,000 223,000 305,000 360,000 560,000 700,000 Privately funded program budget $333,868 $338,700 $268,000 $278,000 $324,000 $333,000 Total program budget $6.50MM $7.60MM $8.40MM $8.47MM $9.98MM $4.61MM* Private cost to reach 1 child $3.00 $1.50 $0.88 $0.77 $0.53 $0.47 10 * The decrease in grant funding for the year 2002 reflects Save the Children’s success at supporting our partners’ sustainability. One of the goals of our economic opportunities program is to establish MFIs so that they can provide client services independently over the long term. In the Mideast, many of our partners achieved that sustainability and now operate independently, accounting for their own program costs in their own books as well as reducing Save the Children’s loan capital costs. Their success enables us, with the help of our donors, to expand our programs to other communities where our work is urgently needed.
In Jordan, Save the Children established a microfinance institution called Microfund for Women that provides loans to low-income women and families. Other programs have become self-sustaining, including the Bani Hamida weaving project for rural women and the Jordan River Designs urban project in refugee camps. Both later merged into the Jordan River Foundation, chaired by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah. In addition, the Jordanian Women’s Development Society has become a new not-for-profit limited liability company that now operates nationally. PHOTO: WILLIAM FOLEY A mother in Jordan proudly shows her wares from her small shop, which she supports by participating in a Save the Children microfinance program. In Egypt, Save the Children’s growing microfinance program has the potential to reach more than 100,000 clients and to become an independent microfinance institution, Al Tadamun. In Lebanon, Al Majmoua, a local lending organization we created, continues to open new branch offices and grow its active client base, now serving 5,000 women as well as men and benefiting some 20,000 of their sons and daughters. In the West Bank and Gaza, Save the Children provides financial services to low-income women and has established a local microfinance institution called Palestine for Credit and Development (FATEN). Women’s income is especially important in the West Bank and Gaza, where the ongoing crisis has cost husbands’ jobs and put the burden on wives to earn income and help meet their children’s and families’ needs. A mother from Tarquimia Village in the southern West Bank attended 200 hours of training on dressmaking and fashion design that Save the Children offered. As a result of this course, she works at home and designs trousers and jackets and then sells them to help provide for her seven children. Her income is critical since her husband, who used to be a laborer before the current crisis, now is jobless. —A true story from a Save the Children microfinance program in the West Bank and Gaza 11
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