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PO Box A524
Sydney South NSW 1235, Level 11, 227 Elizabeth Street Sydney NSW 2000

Telephone: 1800 812 164

© 2024 Opportunity International AustraliaABN 83 003 805 043

Why Help A Mother?

By Marie Laurie

A core pillar of Opportunity International Australia’s work is to invest in mothers through small loans so they can start businesses, earn incomes and leave poverty behind.

Currently, 94% of loans are given to women, providing them with an opportunity to gain financial independence. The motivation behind this is that women living in poverty are more likely to be excluded from formal financial services. Furthermore, women are more likely to invest their income back into their children, family and wider society. In this way, investing in a mother is not just an investment in an individual – it’s an investment in a community.

The International Trade Centre (ITC) thinks so too. In 2015, they launched the SheTrades initiative to further the economic inclusion of women, particularly in developing countries. Hailed the 'tinder for businesses', SheTrades is an app that allows women-owned businesses to connect with potential buyers, with the aim of connecting 1 million women to the market by 2020.

The ITC created the app in a push to empower more women economically, with an increasing awareness that the lack of participation of women in economic markets limits diversity and competiveness. The use of innovation in the SheTrades initiative, is just one of the calls to action that the ITC has made to address the unequal representation of women participating in the economy.

This was the message of Arancha González, ITC Executive Director, speaking last month at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, a leading Australian economic think-tank.

Ms González made clear the overwhelming opportunity that the economic inclusion of women has within the global economy.

If women were as included in the global economy as men, it would have the effect of adding $28 trillion to global output by 2025, the equivalent of the output of China and the US combined.

Honing in on the point that empowering women financially has reverberating effects on the surrounding family and community, Ms González stated that, “Literate fathers often have illiterate children. Literate mothers almost never do. When women have access to education and employment the effects last generations”. A report by McKinsey & Company supports the idea that investing in women has positive intergenerational effects, highlighting that, “Every pay check to women is in essence, an investment in the human capital of the next generation”.

These findings only reinforce Opportunity International Australia’s ongoing mission to give a HandUp to mothers living in poverty. It provides a lot of optimism that major intergovernmental organisations are acknowledging the overwhelming potential of women living in developing countries to engage in the economy, gain control of their financial situation and invest in their families and communities.

Why help a mother? Because it makes economic sense, and because it changes a family’s life for generations to come. Empower her today.

Marie Laurie is Opportunity International Australia's Supporter Relations Intern.

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