Healthy Women, Healthy Business: A Comparative Study of Pro Mujer's Integration of Microfinance and Health Services

This study examines a microfinance network, Pro Mujer that offers integrated health and microfinance services to find out how one network manages to offer a range of financial and non-financial services on a sustainable basis. The study:

• Analyzes the costs and benefits of health and microfinance services that the three Pro Mujer MFIs offer;
• Explores how client demand, market conditions and country context affect decisions regarding service provision models;
• Addresses the key factors that an institution requires to successfully offer integrated services and the constraints it must overcome to achieve sustainability.

The study states that Pro Mujer has allowed its service delivery strategy to be adapted to local conditions in each country and examines:

• Similarities and differences between health service strategies among the three MFIs;
• How clients and partners evaluate the benefits of these services;
• Financial performance of each model.

The study finds that:

• Pro Mujer clients value the financial and health services that they receive;
• Offering multiple services leverages Pro Mujer's existing infrastructure, improves client loyalty and strengthens its competitive position;
• Offering both financial and health services requires significant institutional capacity because the two programs have different management requirements.

The study concludes that integrated service models can have a positive and sustainable impact and the feasibility of replication depends upon management commitment, institutional capacity, client demand and the operating environment.