MERI (Market, Economic, Recovery, and Inclusion)
Women's Micro Bank Limited
(
Private sector
)
#SDGAction52220
Description
In March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in PNG, markets were shut down as part of the lockdown measures by the government. Many women and their families were affected because they could no longer earn from their livelihood. UNCDF in partnership with UN Women and Women’s Micro Bank Limited (WMBL) launched a project called MERI (Markets, Economic, Recovery, and Inclusion) program in February 2022 to overcome the challenges faced by the market vendors. The project aimed at supporting 160 (40 each market) women vendors in four main markets in PNG; Port Moresby, Lae, Goroka, and Vanimo.
During Covid 19 crisis all the markets were shut down by the Govt. of PNG, and livelihood generating activities were badly affected. As a result of this, many women who used to actively participate in their micro businesses were impacted critically including their families. UNCDF, in partnership with UN Women and DFAT came into collaboration and launched the project called MERI by choosing WMBL as the project implementing partner. With the given experience of the Bank working towards the Women Economic Empowerment and access to financial services in PNG, it was a win-win move for the project with the idea of working with Women to bring back their livelihood through better coordination and access to finance for their economic empowerment. WMBL’s Access Points model known as MAPs and Bank on Wheel was implemented through its HUB and SPOKE approach by using a technology-enabled biometric solution along with the concept of portable banking using a tablet, Bluetooth printer, and biometric scanner to perform all basic banking services at the marketplaces. Due to its accessible, affordable banking approach it was quickly accepted in the markets where women vendors were the targeted beneficiaries and their livelihood made easier for the vendors to do banking at their marketplace. Secondly, WMBL use Self-Reliance Group methodology adopting Grameen concept with local context upon which the project was delivered with informal local market vendors to come together to find ways to improve their living conditions after COVID 19 crisis. The initiative helped 160 women during its first phase to avail bank accounts, financial literacy training, business development skill training, and a concessional micro loan to uplift their livelihood generation activities to which they responded well, and gradually 606 more women became part of this project to avail such banking services. The key objective of this initiative was to make available concessional credit to market vendors, encourage them the savings culture through group mechanism, and take informed decision to help grow their group socially, and financially. The greatest part of this project was with no collateral to their loan, WMBL encouraged Social Collateral which encouraged the women to participate positively and strengthen their social capital by utilizing their shared responsibility within their group itself.
After the successful implementation of the project WMBL now have setup extended MAPs/ Mobile Banking Units in all four project locations. It has now sustained with well trained staff with technology enabled systems which is actively supporting women vendors on daily basis with regular savings, bio-metric withdrawals, and there are 38 Self-Reliance Groups in these 4 markets formed through this MERI project. Reaching out to the last mile customer segment in this project primarily women vendors from the informal sectors, living in rural and informal areas who have never had the chance to access formal financial services were benefited. WMBL have given capacity building training and knowledge sharing to the group members and to the group leaders who are now taking care of all activities by themselves and taken 3rd cycle credit facility. The simple and safe banking technology that was used by WMBL has given a booster to the women with easy of doing banking. The idea of bringing the women vendors back into the track was a successful journey during the project that has given the women vendors an exposure to do well in their livelihood generating activity and stand strong in their life to support themselves and their families and be resilient in future calamity. The training modules adopted were around savings, and budgeting to educate them about the importance of it. It was a meaningful training process where-in women vendors shared their part of the story as well, like how they have been saving and managing their informal market before the Covid-19 hit them, and how they have been supported by WMBL to come back to the stage where they were before Covid-19. This is a testimonial to the impact that has reached to the ground with bank’s due diligence and process driven approach. WMBL has added value to bring more products and services to the women vendors from which, one group has graduated to take bigger loans and looking forward to establishing their own formal SME business. The partnership between the development agencies such as UNCDF, UN Women, DFAT, and CGAP with WMBL has also given a lot of scope to the bank in knowledge adoption, experimenting the real microfinance by implementing Self-Reliance Group which has worked within the market settings, and continuing after the project period in a sustainable manner and serving the core of objective to the Women Economic Empowerment.
While the project was initiated in the four big markets of Papua New Guinea such as POM, Lae, Goroka, and Vanimo with the idea of reaching out to women vendors by giving them accessible, and affordable banking services at their marketplaces by setting up Mama-Bank Access Points, and through Bank on Wheel services, it was necessary to ensure coordinated activities carried out by all parties lead by Bank. On this note, WMBL has started reaching out to various stakeholder within the project purview. Coordination with Women Vendors- the first and foremost activity was to start coordinating with the women vendors at the marketplaces where the services were supposed to deliver by forming Self- Reliance groups; hence, a lot of awareness meetings, concept sharing, and question-answer sessions were carried out by the staff from the bank. It helped the women in opening their bank account, form their respective groups, and carry out weekly savings, and group meetings. Secondly, coordination with the UN Women interlocutors across four locations to ensure smooth beginning of the processes which had a greater impact on the project. on this note, WMBL’s project team have reached out them discussing the scope of operations, addressing market level issues and concerns, identifying women vendors and creating a safe space for the women and bank to operate as per the plan. Thirdly, the coordination between the Market Managers of four markets to ensure smooth operations, and support system to provide a space from establishing the MAP locations and Bank on Wheel. It was a well-coordinated by the WMBL team at the local level governance to make sure the partnerships are long term, and win-win. Lastly, the coordination between major stakeholders like UN Women, UNCDF and WMBL to ensure project progress was in alignment with its timeline. From the beginning the stakeholder meetings were implemented to see the progress, addressing the bottlenecks, and implement it in a timely manner. A weekly monitoring system was used to track the activities to ensure timely implementation of the project. The weekly MIS report used as a tool to understand the progress, as well as joint planning was carried out to ensure project completion. Monthly monitoring by funder and quarterly reporting by WMBL to all stakeholders and further meetings to chalk out any pressing issues were the positive attitude to ensure the project completions on a high note.
SDGS & Targets
Goal 5
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
5.1
End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
5.1.1
Whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce and monitor equality and non‑discrimination on the basis of sex
5.2
5.2.1
Proportion of ever-partnered women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to physical, sexual or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by form of violence and by age
5.2.2
Proportion of women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to sexual violence by persons other than an intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by age and place of occurrence
5.3
5.3.1
Proportion of women aged 20-24 years who were married or in a union before age 15 and before age 18
5.3.2
Proportion of girls and women aged 15-49 years who have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting, by age
5.4
Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
5.4.1
Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age and location
5.5
Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
5.5.1
Proportion of seats held by women in (a) national parliaments and (b) local governments
5.5.2
Proportion of women in managerial positions
5.6
Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences
5.6.1
Proportion of women aged 15-49 years who make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care
5.6.2
Number of countries with laws and regulations that guarantee full and equal access to women and men aged 15 years and older to sexual and reproductive health care, information and education
5.a
Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws
5.a.1
(a) Proportion of total agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land, by sex; and (b) share of women among owners or rights-bearers of agricultural land, by type of tenure
5.a.2
Proportion of countries where the legal framework (including customary law) guarantees women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control
5.b
5.b.1
Proportion of individuals who own a mobile telephone, by sex
5.c
Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels
5.c.1
Proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment
Goal 8
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
8.1
8.1.1
Annual growth rate of real GDP per capita
8.2
Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, including through a focus on high-value added and labour-intensive sectors
8.2.1
Annual growth rate of real GDP per employed person
8.3
Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services
8.3.1
Proportion of informal employment in total employment, by sector and sex
8.4
Improve progressively, through 2030, global resource efficiency in consumption and production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, in accordance with the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, with developed countries taking the lead
8.4.1
Material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP
8.4.2
Domestic material consumption, domestic material consumption per capita, and domestic material consumption per GDP
8.5
8.5.1
Average hourly earnings of female and male employees, by occupation, age and persons with disabilities
8.5.2
Unemployment rate, by sex, age and persons with disabilities
8.6
8.6.1
Proportion of youth (aged 15-24 years) not in education, employment or training
8.7
Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms
8.7.1
Proportion and number of children aged 5‑17 years engaged in child labour, by sex and age
8.8
Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment
8.8.1
Fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 workers, by sex and migrant status
8.8.2
Level of national compliance with labour rights (freedom of association and collective bargaining) based on International Labour Organization (ILO) textual sources and national legislation, by sex and migrant status
8.9
By 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products
8.9.1
Tourism direct GDP as a proportion of total GDP and in growth rate
8.10
Strengthen the capacity of domestic financial institutions to encourage and expand access to banking, insurance and financial services for all
8.10.1
(a) Number of commercial bank branches per 100,000 adults and (b) number of automated teller machines (ATMs) per 100,000 adults
8.10.2
Proportion of adults (15 years and older) with an account at a bank or other financial institution or with a mobile-money-service provider
8.a
8.a.1
Aid for Trade commitments and disbursements
8.b
By 2020, develop and operationalize a global strategy for youth employment and implement the Global Jobs Pact of the International Labour Organization
8.b.1
Existence of a developed and operationalized national strategy for youth employment, as a distinct strategy or as part of a national employment strategy
SDG 14 targets covered
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Deliverables & Timeline
The project was successfully initiated in Port Moresby, Lae, Goroka, and Vanimo with 16 groups and 160 women as a part of the process with an objective of giving them access to financial inclusion services at their locations.
The Project mandate was to set up Four physical or mobile services in the project locations, conducting Financial Literacy, and Business Development Skill training to all the 160 women vendors.
After successfully adding 160 customers in the first phase, 500 additional women vendors were supposed to be added into the project, in response to this- there were 606 women vendors added across the four (4) locations.
Resources mobilized
Partnership Progress
Feedback
Action Network
Timeline
Entity
More information
Countries
SIDS regions
- Pacific
Samoa pathway priority area
- Sustained and Sustainable, Inclusive and Equitable Economic Growth with Decent Work for All
- Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment
Contact Information
Gunanidhi, Chief Executive Officer