Understanding the Financial Needs of Female Smallholders
The Women’s Financial Inclusion Community of Practice is happy to share this webinar recording based on a recent CGAP publication “Female Smallholders in the Financial Inclusion Agenda” highlighting the gender gap in financial inclusion among smallholder families in Tanzania and Mozambique through unique survey data that are representative of smallholders at the national level. Using a gender lens in the analysis of smallholder financial behavior reveals that rural expansion of financial institutions has not automatically reached female smallholders. The findings highlight how women’s smallholders are more excluded than men, and even in wealthier households, women’s income and livelihood diversification options tend to be more limited.
This webinar is an opportunity to dive deeper into the key findings and discuss with practitioners how these insights can shape design and delivery of products that address the challenges faced by female smallholder farmers.
Maureen Kwilasa
Maureen Kwilasa is the Technical Advisor on Financial Inclusion for Southern Africa, based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She currently spearheads CARE’s efforts in Southern Africa, to capitalize and scale savings groups as a platform to increase food and nutrition security and building communities’ resilience against climate change, primarily working with women and girls as both the agents of change and program beneficiaries. She is also a lead champion on financial inclusion for Savings Groups, within the Graça Machel Trust’s- Women Advancing Africa Network. Maureen has led programs in OXFAM Ireland, Amnesty International-Malaysia, CARE International in Tanzania and One Acre Fund. Maureen holds an LL.M in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights from the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland and a Bachelor’s Degree with honors in Law, awarded by the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.
Christabell Makokha
Christabell Makokha is the Country Director for Mercy Corps’ AgriFin Accelerate (AFA) program in Zambia. She has experience in strategy advisory and consulting having worked with clients in the private sector as well as in development; previous clients have included government and educational institutions, multi-lateral donors, pharmaceutical companies, and investors in the Agriculture, Global Health, and Financial Inclusion sectors. She has vast experience in performing market research and analytics to inform strategy, product development, and impact evaluation.With an extensive understanding of financial and non-financial needs of smallholder farmers and potential models to address these issues, Christabell is leading the overall implementation of the AFA program in Zambia, including establishing the Zambia office, developing, and leading partner engagements. Christabell holds AB and BE degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Dartmouth College, US.
Emilio Hernandez
Emilio Hernandez leads CGAP’s work on financial innovation for smallholder families. He provides technical guidance to better understand the financial behavior of smallholders in order to experiment innovative strategies, processes and products with financial service providers and other partners to adequately serve this large clientele segment in a sustainable manner. Prior to CGAP, Emilio led technical cooperation programs focused on inclusive rural and agricultural finance at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN overseeing field interventions in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He also oversaw business operations for a large international agricultural technology company throughout Central America. He holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and Development Finance from The Ohio State University.
Nisha Singh
Nisha Singh leads Social Norms working group in the Women’s Financial Inclusion CoP. Her work focuses on increasing economic opportunities for women through innovations in programming and use of technology. She recently wrapped up a peer learning initiative on “Shifting Social Norms in the Economy at Scale.” Prior to that she worked at The SEEP Network from 2008 to 2016 where she managed a portfolio of learning programs that focused on increasing economic opportunities for vulnerable populations. Nisha began her journey in development in 2002 in Hyderabad, India working on livelihood financing. Since then she has worked with a range of institutions from CBOs to multi-lateral donors, private sector actors and policy makers on promoting access to finance and market systems development.