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Social Microfinance for Rural Women

Theme
Diaspora and Social Change
Country
Liberia
Type of Donor
NGO
Name of Donor
African Community Exchange -ACE-Liberia
Description

The Project, "Social Microfinance Program for Rural Women," is being implemented by the US and Liberian-based charity Learning Squared Liberia sponsored by African Community Exchange -ACE-Liberia. The project's overall objective is to reduce rural poverty and household income insecurity on a sustainable basis amongst rural women whose children benefit from our scholarship program. The project is to help improve access to rural financial services on a sustainable basis and provide livelihood services and seed funds for women across three communities and three schools in two counties in Liberia.

The project launched against the background that Liberia's struggling job market is a severe challenge to rural women survivability. And efforts grassroots solutions to have access to financial service in rural communities. And this program helps to develop entrepreneurial skills, resiliency, and the ability of families to be self-sufficient. Since 2019 Learning Squared, social microfinance has helped unlock the potential and developed the entrepreneurial skills of women in rural Liberia. The program focused on parents, especially women who have their children, on our rural scholarship program. The program revolves around microcredit and small business education program for rural women in our project areas using our social business concept. The project is in two counties in Liberia. The key strategies of the project include community mobilization and sensitization, training and working with community schools and partners, community meetings, local NGOs, CBOs, and other civil society groups in the project area.

Rural women are key agents for development. They play a catalytic role in the achievement of transformational economic, environmental, and social changes required for sustainable development. But limited access to credit, food security, and education are among the many challenges they face. These are further aggravated by the global food and economic crises and climate change. Empowering them is essential, not only for the well-being of individuals, families, and rural communities but also for overall economic productivity, given women’s large presence in the small business workforce in Liberia.

Learning Squared supports the leadership and participation of rural women through the rural women’s structure in helping with issues that affect their lives, including improved better rural livelihoods, supporting children's education in rural Liberia. Training equips them with skills to pursue new livelihoods and increase their income generation.

Background:
Women play a key role in supporting every form and a large proportion of the small business workforce in Liberia. In Liberia, they comprise 54% of the labor force in both the formal and informal sectors. In small business and trading activities, they constitute more than 80 percent of trading activities in the rural areas and are heavily engaged in the artisanal fishing and mining industries. In addition to fulfilling daily household chores. Yet Liberian women remain among the most disadvantaged. They are disproportionately clustered in the least productive sectors, with 90 percent employed in the informal sector or agriculture. Their predominance in the informal economy translates into low productivity, meager earnings, and exposure to exploitation.

Illiteracy rates among women aged 15-49 are particularly high (60 percent) compared to men (30 percent). 42 percent of Liberian women and 18 percent of men have never attended school. In rural areas, literacy rates are staggeringly low at 26 percent, while the gender gap in secondary school attendance is very high, with a net attendance ratio of 6 percent for females. While 19 percent of men have completed secondary school or higher, only 8 percent of women have accomplished the same.

In Liberia, 40 percent of the population is highly vulnerable to food insecurity, and women, who lack means of sustainable livelihoods, employment skills and suffer from higher rates of malnutrition, are particularly susceptible.
Given equal resources, rural women could contribute much more to all sectors of Liberia, especially education. Many of Liberia’s most poor are rural women. Poverty eradication is a key challenge for women in rural parts of Liberia. The establishment of Learning Squared Liberia Social Microfinance Program in Liberia created a platform for rural women, especially for women whose children are benefiting from our rural scholarship program, to articulate their concerns, evaluate their accomplishments, and devise strategies to tackle challenges they may encounter. One key concern for the structure has been the need for supporting rural women farmers in improving their livelihoods and securing increased income, especially in rural Liberia.