Women Empowerment Through Self-Selected Groups: The Case of LAPO Microfinance Bank Ltd.
In contemporary times, the concept of women empowerment has become an issue of key importance in the development discourse across the world. Studies on the impact of microfinance on women empowerment has shown conflicting results- with some studies presenting empirical evidence of its positive effects while others emphasising the potential for disempowerment. Such contradictions call into question the role of microfinance in achieving specific developmental objectives and demands for further empirical evidence. In developing countries, such as Nigeria, microfinance has shown its potential to provide a full range of financial and non-financial services to the active poor. Microfinance services are provided to poor people, mostly women, through a Self-Selected Group (SSG). The belief is that women’s access to credit catalyses a positive change in their empowerment. In this light, Self-Selected Groups in the urban context were studied. A qualitative method approach, through a semi-structured interview and focus group discussion, was used to capture participants’ perspectives and gain insights into their experiences in their natural setting. For this study, 24 senior practitioners were initially interviewed to sensitise their views on microfinance policies and strategies for empowering women. Besides, focus group discussions involving 71 women were conducted, while an additional 10 individual women beneficiaries were interviewed across Lagos East, Nigeria. During the interviews, observations were made about participants’ body language, communication, networking and interactions with others. The research drew on the analytical frameworks of Alternative Development with major emphasis on Friedman’s (1992) Empowerment Theory. The study found that there were positive changes in the economic and social empowerment of women participants. Nevertheless, there was a mixed result of the findings on political empowerment. While household and intra-group decision making was enhanced, participants’ political awareness and political representation is incredibly low. It was inferred from the findings that access to resources and financial autonomy are vital to women’s economic empowerment. While social empowerment facilitates women’s economic empowerment, how poor women’s social power can be transformed into political empowerment remains ambiguous. Thus, a significant implication of this study would be that although microfinance empowers women- economically and socially-the goal of their political empowerment requires action beyond participation in microfinance activities. It has been argued that women need to strive for political representation in decision making bodies in order to move towards achieving some degree of political empowerment.
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