Women are good borrowers: Activitist

A. Junaidi, Jakarta

Business loans help women improve the quality of their and their families' lives as they tend to make use of their profits to meet the needs of their families and repay their debts on time, an observer says.

"Unlike men, only a small number of women fail to repay their debts," coordinator of the Indonesian Movement for Microfinance Development Titus K. Kurniadi told a seminar titled "Developing a better quality of life for women" on Wednesday.

The seminar was organized by the Indonesian Coalition for Population and Development and supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Titus said that more than 60 percent of 3.5 million people involved in microfinance schemes were women, who almost never missed their payments.

He said women who successfully ran a business thanks to a microfinance scheme would spend their profit on family interests.

"They don't think of themselves. In many developing countries, some loans are designated only to women," Titus said.

He suggested that the government provide soft loans for microfinancing institutions that extend loans to poor families.

He classified poor and very poor families as those who earn up to US$1 a day. Studies indicate that a loan between Rp 500,000 ($55.60) and Rp 2 million could help the families emerge from poverty.

"The government need only supervise the institutions in disbursing the loans," he said.

He suggested that the government stop using banks to disburse loans as it would prolong the lending process and the loans would be restricted to particular groups or small-scale businessmen.

"Banks tend to prolong the process of loan disbursements and demand collateral, which could prevent poor families, especially women, from meeting requirements," he said.

Education is another requirement to improve women's quality of life.

Observer Arief Rachman said educating women could help them counter the impact of discriminatory tradition and culture.

"Through education, we can dispose of culture and traditions that place women in a subordinate position," Arief, who is national chairman of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), said.

He said education could also eliminate the myths that underestimated women, such as the theory that women are more emotional than men and men tend to be more rational than women.

He said education was needed to promote gender equality.