Finance
Stimulating economic growth is the best way to create jobs, raise living standards and lift families out of poverty.
When given the chance, women across the world have shown themselves to be highly effective entrepreneurs, investing their returns in their communities and their families.
But a wide range of barriers - both legal and rooted in tradition - can make it far more difficult for women than men to access the capital they need to set up or expand businesses.
The creation and expansion of micro-finance institutions is helping women establish small businesses.
However women also need access to bigger loans and bank credit to enable them to grow and compete on equal terms with men. Helping them to do so is an investment in all our futures.
The creation and expansion of micro-credit and micro-finance institutions has transformed millions of lives.
And it is women who have taken the greatest advantage of the opportunities they provide.
Studies have shown they are more likely to use the money they borrow wisely and more likely to pay it back. It has revealed too, the entrepreneurial spirit of many women as they set up market stalls, shops and home-based businesses.
The enterprises that women have created have increased their family incomes and opportunities. They have also given women more independence and more influence in their communities.
But micro-finance is just one tool. If women are to build on this success and entrepreneurial potential, formal and informal barriers to obtaining finance and credit must be swept away.
They face obstacles at every turn. Because assets are often registered by tradition in the names of male family members, women are unable to put down guarantees against loans. Banks may refuse, or drag their heels on lending to a woman without her husband's permission.
Yet women make up 80 per cent of Liberia's market traders. Studies in South Africa show that women are the country's most successful entrepreneurs. But they are often confined to the informal economy. Banks refuse or are reluctant to give them loans to expand, no matter how successful their business and their repayment record.
Lack of access to banking services goes beyond an inability to get business loans. It also prevents women saving money to expand their businesses, and to look after their families or themselves in later life.
Efforts are beginning to be made to put this right. International financial institutions are starting to forge partnerships with national banks to set up credit schemes for women-owned businesses. Their successes should be replicated.
By giving women access to finance, we can raise family incomes, create jobs and give women greater independence. Mainstream banks need to learn from the success of micro-credit institutions and open their services to women to enable them to invest in themselves, their families and their communities.