There Are 1 Billion Unbanked Women In The World. This Mobile Initiative Could Transform Their Lives (Forbes)

Rose Kibona sells prepared food and drinks to passers-by from a small stall at the bustling local market in her hometown of Mbeya, Tanzania. At the end of each work day, she put her earnings into various savings accounts -- which, in her case, were jars, bags and a locked chest hidden away in her bedroom -- each one for a different purpose.

 

“This is how she saved,” says Mayra Buvinic, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD) and researcher for She Counts.

 

She Counts is an international effort launched this March to support unbanked women micro-entrepreneurs like Kibona by giving them mobile savings accounts. It’s a collaboration between the CGD, Women’s World Banking (WWB) and the ExxonMobil Foundation to reach more than 1 billion women worldwide who lack easy access to banking services.

 

The organization also aims to push financial institutions to serve more of these women. “Traditional social norms [around the world] often further restrict women’s access to productive resources and services, with negative economic consequences,” She Counts says in a recent report.