Changing Lives
10
Financial account ownership gender gap
(percentahge points)
18
10
South
Asia
Middle
East
9
SubSaharan
Africa
9
Europe
& Central
Asia
5
Latin
America &
Caribbean
4
East Asia
& Pacific
Source: World Bank Global Findex
It should hardly come as a surprise that the
countries with the largest financial access
gender gap are also the countries where the
socio-economic conditions of women are the
worst. Without any recourse to banking or any
other mode of financial access, the women fail
to exercise any degree of control over family
budget. And without any control over
household spending, these women are not in
a position to take care of themselves or their
families. On the other hand, a child whose
mother controls the family budget is 20%
more likely to survive – according to an
estimate provided by FAO. With more control
over the budget, there is more food on the
table, more priority on health and education,
which all leads to healthier and happier and
more prosperous families in the long run.
Moreover, with quick and easy access to
capital, women can start their own business
and thus take full ownership of their destinies
and not leaving it to the fickle nature of the
government or nature. Thus the single most
important thread running through all
women's poverty alleviation as well as socioeconomical-political empowerment
initiatives is the closing of the financial
access gender gap. This not only enables
women to take control of their lives but also
the lives of their children and families.
In this context, Mobile money has massive
potential especially when it comes to closing
the financial access gender gap. Already, we
are witnessing the financial access gender
gap narrowing significantly in countries where
mobile money has made inroads into the
financial system. For example, in Kenya and
Zimbabwe, where mobile money has
overtaken formal banking system, financial
access gender gap is lower than the regional
average. In fact, for EcoCash, Zimbabwe's
largest mobile money service, women
constitute 52% of the customer base2. From
tailored mobile money services for women
and family-oriented marketing to deploying
female agents, mobile money providers have
played a huge role in creating gender parity.
This article shows how the mobile money
operators are transforming the lives of women
in the developing world.