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| Link up microfinance services, says Nabw |
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by
Ayam Maeresa, 20 August 2003
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16:54:39
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Only a collective effort and linkage of business development services by microfinance organisations will raise the level of small-scale enterprises, National Association of Business Women (Nabw) executive director Mary Malunga said on Tuesday.
Malunga, whose organisation is running several women empowerment projects across the country and offers small business loans as capital, said in an interview in Blantyre solo initiatives rarely bear fruits.
She said worse still, microfinance institutions always collide over the same groups of clients which, she said, tends to create problems in the small and medium enterprise (SMEs) sector.
“So many of us are scrambling for the same clients and that has resulted in multiple [borrowers],” said Malunga, who is also vice chairperson of the Malawi Microfinance Network.
She said the network was formed to iron out such problems by ensuring that organisation are talking to each other on what they are doing. Malunga said linkages will help to avoid duplication of effort among the organisations.
She said cooperation between Nabw and other institutions such as Malawi Industrial Research and Technology Development Centre (MIRTDC) has proved worthwhile in Mwanza, where Nabw members trained by MIRTDC are in full swing engaging in fruit processing business.
She said the group was exporting its tangerine products to neighbouring Mozambique. Last week the organisation gave loans in excess of K350,000 in the district under a European Union (EU) funded programme.
Dutch group Hivos has given Nabw a grant of about K14 million to run programmes related to further economic empowerment of women.
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