Women are crucial for development

An often disregarded and poorly acknowledged aspect of development is the role played by women. Women are central to the entire development process. They are also at the vanguard of social transformation. Am I exaggerating?

There are several examples that show women’s power. One of them is Grameen Bank’s success, which is based on lending only to women. The entrepreneurs who were able to use the microloans were women. The Grameen phone ladies are the entrepreneurs. Amul, a milk co-operative in India, depends on women for supplying their milk in villages. Women also collect the cash for the milk, and therefore have achieved a new social status.

Access to economic independence can change the long tradition of suppression of women and denial of opportunities. The success of Avon, Mary Kay and Tupperware in the United States and other parts of the world is also based on the role of women entrepreneurs. Although the evidence points toward success, very little explicit attention has been paid to actively enlisting women in the efforts to build markets and lead the development process.

Cemex offers an excellent case study. This company is one of the world’s largest cement companies and works only with women. Through innovation, it has found a profitable and empowering means of housing the poor for profit, instead of leaving that to governments.

Cemex realized that women are the key drivers of savings in families. In Mexican society (and most others),women are entrepreneurial in nature. Regardless of whether they are homemakers, outside-the-home workers, or small-business owners, they are responsible for savings in the majority of Mexican families. This tendency is stronger in low-income families. The men in the society consider their job done if they bring in their paycheque at the end of the day. The women actually manage expenses with the limited allowance that they receive from the men. They have to find creative ways to allocate money from the allowance as savings to build a house, spend on children’s education, and so forth.

In 1998, Cemex decided to establish Patrimonio Hoy, revolutionizing the idea of savings by changing the basic spending pattern of the poor in Mexico. In this system, poor people not only save their money, but also obtain access to credit based on their savings and payment discipline–a new model that moved away from a savings-only or a credit-only system to a savings-credit system. Patrimonio Hoy has strict rules and standards for the program.

Thus, Patrimonio Hoy has partners who are actual customers and who enrol in Patrimonio Hoy. The partners get together and form a group, restricted to three people. The reason for such a small group size is that it is easier to enforce payment discipline in a smaller group.

The promoters (98% of them are women) play a key role as ambassadors for Patrimonio Hoy. They work on a commission basis that depends on the number of partners they help enrol and how long the partners stay within the program.

The Patrimonio Hoy program now has three initiatives:

• Escolar (school) is a variation of the original program in that it helps improve infrastructure in the local schools. Four per cent of the membership payment of partners is allocated toward improvement of school facilities.

• Te Impulsa is an accelerated version of the original program where raw materials are delivered to customers earlier. The materials are delivered in three instalments–30% in week 6, 30% in week 14, and 40% in week 22.

• Calle Digna (Worthy Street) was created in response to the request of partners who wanted to move on from building their homes to improving infrastructure in their neighbourhood. This is a classic example of how Patrimonio Hoy has changed the consumer outlook from despair to hope. This project brings the people even closer to work together for the cause of their communities.

More results? Thanks to Cemex and women’s efforts, after three years of operations, Patrimonio Hoy had more than 36,000 customers and more than $10 million in credit. It operated through 23 cities across 19 states in Mexico. The customer base is growing at 1,500 to 1,600 per month.

One of the most important and critical factors is that Patrimonio Hoy has successfully created, with sustainability, an entirely new channel for selling cement and other construction materials. Cemex has tripled its cement sales in places where Patrimonio Hoy operates. Furthermore, thanks to women’s efforts, this project has created benefits to the company as well as the community as a whole.