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costs and risks involved in administering smallloans. As a result, workers rely on exploitativemoneylenders or suppliers who sell on creditat highly unfavourable rates. In response to theproblem of financial exclusion, microfinanceinstitutions have sprung up over the past fewdecades and have expanded rapidly in developingcountries. Women tend to make up the majority ofborrowers due to their perceived greater reliabilityin repaying the loans. 229 However, experiencehas shown that the lending practices of manymicrofinance institutions, particularly those thatare ‘for-profit’ and poorly regulated, can in factincrease women’s economic vulnerability and pushhouseholds further into debt. 230Access to microfinance can support women’seconomic security when it is provided by civilsociety organizations as part of a holistic approachto extending opportunities and rights. A number oforganizations of informal self-employed workersprovide small loans and savings schemes as partof a wider package of support to their members.Examples include Didi Bahini Sewa Samaj inNepal, which organizes home-based workers,providing training, access to markets and interestfreeloans that do not require collateral. 231 However,even well-designed microfinance should not be areplacement for extending the reach of institutionalfinance. A set of inclusive financial institutions isneeded such as credit cooperatives and localdevelopment and community banks. These need tobe regulated and incentivized through subsidies toensure that they are accessible to poor women andthe micro-enterprises on which they depend. 232RecommendationsPolicies to redress women’s socio-economicdisadvantage must aim to increase the returns toinformal work, improve working conditions andeliminate the violence and abuse these workersface. Domestic workers must be protected by thefull range of labour laws. Including women informalworkers in urban planning and decision-making canhelp boost their agency, voice and participation andensure that city environments support rather thanundermine their work. Priorities for public actioninclude:• Extend social protection measures such ashealth care and pension schemes to women ininformal employment (see Chapter 3)• Ratify ILO Convention 189 to recognize therights of domestic workers to decent workingconditions, adequate pay, freedom fromviolence and abuse, and access to socialprotection• Broaden the scope of occupational health andsafety regulations to include informal workers,recognizing the particular hazards that womenface as homeworkers, street vendors andwaste-pickers• Invest in urban and rural infrastructure such aselectricity, water and sanitation, and transport,as well as safe marketplaces with securestorage facilities• Facilitate access to financial services for womeninformal workers, including credit and savings.INCREASING RETURNS TO WOMEN’SSMALL-SCALE FARMINGThe viability of rural livelihoods in developingcountries has been under pressure since the early1980s. 233 Structural adjustment policies led tothe scaling back of state support for agriculturein many countries, including in the provision ofmarketing, credit, inputs and extension services,as well as investment in infrastructure, irrigationand research. Development aid for agriculturealso declined during this period. Private tradersand credit providers have not filled the gap leftby state withdrawal, with poor farmers and thosein remote areas particularly affected. 234In recent years, rising and volatile global foodprices, in part driven by financial speculation,as well as the large-scale dispossession ofagricultural land have combined to produceadverse outcomes for poor and marginalizedfarmers, especially women (see Box 2.9). 235Climate change has also impacted negatively onagricultural production and prices, compounding109