Reem Leila is not ashamed to admit it: money is power Belief in woman as wife and mother is so deep-set in the Egyptian mentality that decades of liberation have not suppressed it. A job is all well and good, but only insofar as it doesn't undermine a woman's traditional, primary role. This, together with a Personal Status Code in contradiction with the government's avowed commitment to improving the female labour market, acts to perpetuate the status quo, limiting not only work opportunities but the chance to engage with them. Yet economic empowerment is at the heart of National Council for Women (NCW) policy, with micro-finance strategies expounded anew on the occasion of the Egyptian Woman's Day. Designed to support Female Heads of Households (FHHs), according to NCW head Farkhonda Hassan, the programme provides women with micro-credit loans, the use of which is envisaged in the context of long-term national development. Engaging representation from the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Social Fund for Development (SFD) and the Public Authority for Adult Education (PAAE), whose participation was thought essential to success, the programme facilitates the empowerment of impoverished FHHs with an eye on economic growth by focussing on individual income-generating projects and the development of centres of training in non-traditional professions. "It has been said that the first step towards change is to realise that it's possible," according to Hassan. "Over the last several years, we've realised it's possible to reach women, including very poor women, and to transform their lives and those of their families and communities by doing no more than providing them with a financial service like this. The programme has proved excellent indeed; it is certainly among the most effective means to empowerment available to us at the present time." The calculations and procedures involve not only investing in income-generating opportunities but risk management and provisions for those events that can hamper a project's smooth operation: marriage and childbirth. According to Sahar Nasr, an alternate of the NCW Economic Committee, for example, an LE300 loan allowed one single mother with eight children to plant rice alongside wheat -- an opportunity for effective diversification -- while the somewhat larger asset loan granted Ihsan El-Sayed, 45, a freezer, giving her the chance to make and sell up to 500 ice creams a day. Nasr pointed out the boost in self confidence that goes with such developments, with women's financial contributions garnering greater respect from husbands, children and extended families; indeed, in some cases, such contributions have enabled women to negotiate a fairer share of the housework, avoid quarrels over money or put a stop to domestic violence. Indeed, according to an NCW study, 41 and 29 per cent of families previously unable to do so have managed to stop domestic violence and send their children to school, respectively -- an astounding improvement. The study also found that some 42 per cent of women in urban areas where the programme has operated for two years or more have seen significant improvement in their poverty levels, while 77 as opposed to 13 per cent of rural women remained in the "very poor" category after two years of the programme. In this and other ways a higher income will have a multiplier effect, since (compared to 50-68 per cent of individual income for men), a woman will tend to contribute her total earnings to the household -- according to a recent study undertaken by Cairo University economics professor Yuomn El-Hamaki. FHHs receive theoretical support besides, mainly in the form of lectures; feasibility studies, marketing and sales, communication skills and partnership are all provided for in this context. And undertaken in 34 villages in 20 governments, the scheme has accepted 4,603 out of 6,860 project applications submitted so far; 600 of these are already underway. Given its financial focus, the programme is implemented in collaboration with the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development (AFESD), whose Economic Committee Coordinator, Soad Rizq, presides over the selection procedures. A woman must be 20-50 years old, Rizk explained. She must hold identification papers, know how to read and write and provide a guarantor to safeguard the repayment of loans: conditions intended to exclude those who are not serious about the projects they propose. And indeed the 600 women who put in the effort to fulfil them have accessed not only the loans but insurance to cover their small businesses. "It's a new life," in the words of one such woman. "I finally feel like a citizen of this country." For her part Nagwa Ashraf, 29, another beneficiary, received all the help she asked for in completing the paperwork required to obtain a micro-loan. "I wanted to support my family and didn't know how," she recounts. "Then, when there emerged these options, there were all these obstacles in the way. But the project itself helped me overcome them; they issued me an ID, for one thing, which I didn't have." The programme took its cue from recommendations of the Alexandria Conference on the role of Egyptian women and the Millennium Development Goals, without which the preconception that micro-loans were unrealistic and ineffective would have persisted. Yet not only have the women in question proved credit-worthy, the programme has also proved easy to implement; for Rizq it is a necessary step on the way to Egyptian female representation -- a goal she describes as essential for development.
