Pro Mujer, meaning “Pro Woman” in Spanish, is a Latin American development organization that facilitates the growth of sustainable microfinance institutions. Founded in Bolivia in 1990, it now also operates in Argentina, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru. Pro Mujer’s most recent combined financial statement, published in 2006, revealed assets in excess of USD 25 million and a loan portfolio over USD 19 million. With an estimated client base of over 200,000, Pro Mujer helps thousands of poor, uneducated women to escape poverty by encouraging entrepreneurial pursuits through financial services and training.Pro Mujer Co-founder and Executive Director, Carmen Velasco, was invited to speak as a featured panelist at the White House Conference on the Americas hosted by US President George Bush. The conference, themed “Advancing the Cause of Social Justice in the Americas,” gave Ms. Velasco an opportunity to explain her organization’s work and its approach to improving the lives of women in Latin America. Moderated by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Ms. Velasco describes the organization’s beginnings and its “strong mission” as a “development tool to fight against poverty.”
Ms. Velasco believes a combination of financial services, training, and healthcare education is necessary to help Pro Mujer’s clients break free of poverty. By investing loan proceeds in income-generating activities, clients are able to produce a “capital seed” to use over and over, thus enriching the quality of their lives.
Ms. Velasco indicated Pro Mujer clients earn approximately 20% more than non-clients. Clients utilize their earnings to further expand their businesses, to provide healthy lifestyles for their children, and, most importantly, to save. In fact, Ms. Velasco claims all of Pro Mujer’s clients in all five countries are able to save. But according to Ms. Velasco, “having a very strong microfinance institution is not enough. You have to show the return, the social return, of the microfinance institution in order to be able to claim success.” Ms. Velasco concludes that investing in women is essential to achieving long-term, sustainable success.
Ms. Velasco’s conference session can be viewed on YouTube.
-Steven Craig
Trackbacks:
Additional Sources:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/7/prweb540657.htm
http://www.promujer.org/pdfs/combfin-state-2005-2004.pdf
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ConferenceAmericas/
http://www.youtube.com/v/QMcF7VALRl8
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