Seguridad y Protección de datos personales

Most institutions if not all, have a goal or a mission that justifies its existence, guides its operation and outlines its statement of intentions. In view of this, it is appropriate to look at

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the goals of APED and Bonzali Rural Bank in order to review their microfinance products, how they are organised and delivered to the women‟s groups. According to the Operational Guide of APED (2010, 6), “The mission of APED is to give opportunity to each productive poor in WVG programs and other identified non-WVG zones of intervention to provide a better livelihood for themselves and their families through the development of sustainable micro enterprises owned primarily by women, to promote justice and proclaim the Kingdom of God”. According to the Operational Guide, APED intends to achieve their mission of “better livelihood” for their clients through the provision of financial and non-financial services. The financial services offered are credit, savings and yet- to-start micro-insurance. Non-financial services, again according to the Operational Guide, involve business management training and counselling; and skills development (APED‟ Operational Manual 2010, 6). These financial and non-financial services contained in the Operational Guide of APED are discussed in turn, in relation to how they are implemented in the women‟s group under study, that is Zaapayim.

From the above mission of APED, some interesting issues are evident that require further exploration. The exploration will be done as the chapter unfolds. However, a cursory observation of the mission of APED indicates that its microfinance schemes are limited to persons (particularly women) who are already in business but cannot access financial resources from conventional banking. Aside the women‟s lack of access to financial resources, APED has identified the need to give women the requisite skills training to enable them to manage their businesses properly in order to achieve maximum returns on their investments. Another interesting aspect of the mission of APED is their intension to achieve religious ends through its microfinance programme. To what extent do these religious values have an influence on the clients-base and the type of entrepreneurial activities that APED is ready to support? This question will be addressed in due course.

However, before I address the question let us turn our attention to Bonzali Rural Bank, Tamale Agency; the other MFI under study and discuss its mission. Before I proceed, I wish to point out that unlike APED that had a detailed or elaborate document on their operations; in the case of Bonzali, I had limited written material dealing with their mission, goals and activities.

Bonzali Rural Bank Tamale Agency, which in the study I will call “Bonzali” both for convenience and because the women affectionately call it so, offers a wider range of services

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to its customers. Accordingto excerpts18 of Bonzali Rural Bank‟s profile, the services Bonzali offer include general traditional banking services (savings, credit and money transfer facilities) and microfinance. This means that apart from microfinance, Bonzali equally offers traditional banking products for the public. However, for the purpose of my study, I will focus on Bonzali‟s microfinance schemes. From the same excerpts of Bonzali‟s profile, we can read that Bonzali‟s microfinance programme seeks “to provide microfinance services to a large volume of low-income persons that will enable them to improve their welfare” especially in the Northern Region of Ghana‟. According to the document, Bonzali intends to offer its clients the following microfinance schemes; savings, credit, and training programmes. In the same document, it is stated that the provision of traditional banking services and microfinance will enhance the living standards of the poor in their target communities. It can be inferred from the above goal that the microfinance schemes of Bonzali do not seem to be meant to support starters to establish micro-enterprises but for the poor who are already into income generating activities, albeit with little or no access to financial resources. The overview of the missions/goals of the two MFIs above, show the interest of both Bonzali and APED to offer their microfinance schemes to the poor but delimit them to „low-income persons‟ or „productive poor‟ with the goal of improving their livelihood. This brings us to the issue of the „productive poor‟ as client of microfinance schemes.

At the policy level as noted above, APED and Bonzali prefer the “productive poor” as their main targets of their microfinance programmes. The term productive poor in this study refers to persons or group of persons who are into small-scale income generating activities but with limited access to financial and other related services for the sustenance and growth of their business enterprises. This implies that as a matter of policy, women who do not have business but may have the potential to establish businesses are not qualified to participate in programmes of the MFIs. This selective targeting of a category of the poor appear not to fulfil the premise upon which modern microfinance sub-sector emerged as noted by Yunus (2002, 236) above. Equally, Adjei (2010, 5-6) underscores that “better access to financial services enables the poor to establish and expand micro-enterprises and thereby improve their income levels and create employment”. Where lies the fate of the poor without business?

Another similarity of the two programmes is that APED and Bonzali have women as the main clients for their microfinance programmes. In view of the MFIs as contained in their

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Operational Guide and profiles respectively, women constitute the segments of the population that lacks assets for collateral, a requirement of traditional banking. Is the lack of assets for collateral the motivation for making microfinance accessible to women by the MFIs? Do the reported characteristics of women in relation to their response to and management of microfinance schemes inform the MFIs‟ preference for women as the literature suggests (Armendariz and Roome 2008; see also Rahaman 1998 as cited in Nelson 2009, 5)? Can it also be said that APED and Bonzali have hidden motivations for dealing with women as suggested by Rahaman (1998 as cited in Nelson 2009, 5). We will explore and assess these claims as the chapter unfolds and in subsequent chapters.

The similarities notwithstanding, APED and Bonzali differ in terms of outreach and the belief systems that guide their practices. APED on one hand has its outreach across the country while Bonzali‟s outreach is limited to only the Northern Region of Ghana. On the other hand, APED‟s microfinance schemes are largely influenced by Christian beliefs (see chapter 1) while Bonzali is guided by secular values in the delivery of their microfinance.

An equally important component of the microfinance schemes of the two MFIs is their intensions to undertake non-financial services to complement the financial schemes they offer their women‟s groups. According to the Operational Guide of APED, the non-financial schemes they intend to offer to their clients include “business training through capacity building of individual entrepreneurs, skills development and agricultural extension services”. Like APED, Bonzali‟s non-financial schemes as contained in the excerpts organisational profile comprise business management training, book/record keeping skills and health education. A closer look at these non-financial microfinance schemes of APED and Bonzali appear that they focus on meeting women‟s business needs and skills needed for the effective implementation of their microfinance programmes. Little or no mention is made of women‟s empowerment as espoused by advocates and the feminist literature of microfinance. Both MFIs are then seen to be operating with some aspects of the goals and policies of the financial sustainability and poverty alleviation paradigms as I discussed in the previous chapter.

Upon reviewing the goals/mission and ideals of the APED and Bonzali, I will now turn attention to the types of microfinance schemes offered by the MFIs to their clients.