Gender-focused work in Papua New Guinea

• Nov 1, 2018
• 1 min

Under the Microfinance Expansion Project (MEP) in Papua New Guinea MSC collaborated with women’s community groups to promote gender issues. Among other engagements, the project trained over 150,000 people, with women comprising a significant proportion of trainees.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) commissioned MSC to implement the Microfinance Expansion Project (MEP) in Papua New Guinea. Under this project, MSC collaborated with women’s community groups to develop linkages with MFIs, women’s banks, and women and faith-based groups. The aim was to promote gender issues at the provincial, district, and local levels.

MSC designed women-focused financial products, gender policies, and conducted workshops with partner financial institutions. Women were the central focus in the design and delivery of every financial education retail training and training-of-trainers. MSC drafted the first-of-its-kind gender policy for use by the partner financial institutions in the country. A key contribution of the MEP was the establishment of the Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion (CEFI), which has a particular focus on women and aims to achieve financial inclusion.

The project trained over 150,000 people—with women comprising 47% of the clients trained in financial education and 67% of the clients trained in business development services.