'Gender friendly lending system needed for women empowerment'

NEW DELHI: South Asian countries should evolve a "gender friendly" lending system for its women to help in their economic empowerment and the overall development of the region, Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury said on Friday.

"The policy makers in the region should adopt a gender-friendly lending system as the economic empowerment of the women is vital for the region," she said while inaugurating a South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (Saarc) conference on micro-financing and women's economic empowerment here.

Chowdhury stressed that a diverse micro-finance sector should be developed for women.

"Women have emerged as the most credible borrowers and micro-financing schemes have demonstrated that the poor women are bankable and a valuable source for savings mobilisation. However, the benefits and potential of such schemes are still to be uniformly realised in the region," she said.

She said access of women to economic resources not only enhanced the productivity of a particular household, but also provided better opportunities for education, health and social development.

"Micro-finance has become an important tool to enable women to seize these opportunities," she said.

Government representatives, micro-finance institutions and NGOs from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka attended the conference.

Representatives of various international bodies also participated.