I participate in several professional alumni groups in Nigeria, and it's amazing to see how many initiatives for rural women's empowerment in Nigeria during the post-covid era have turned into a 'POS Trend'. I refer to it as a trend because it establishes a pattern for both the ‘empowerer’ (organization/giver) and the ‘empoweree’ (rural women/receiver). Even though women make up 50% of Nigeria's population, more than half of the country's 200 million residents live in rural areas and absolute poverty, with women accounting for 55% of these rural populations, and a high rate of unbanked poor who rely on using POS machines to access funds (Partnership for Economic Policy, 2011). As a result, rural women are becoming POS agents as a post-covid economic empowerment model by some NGOs, commercial banks, and even the Government. In terms of literacy, there is also a clear divide between women living in urban and rural areas.
POS stands for point of sales (POS) terminals and avenues for women to launch new endeavors. Due to the rising number of people using digital finance in Nigeria, the POS is used as a mobile bank where customers can debit and credit monies using a mobile bank agent who manages the mobile device. In other words, the 'empowerers' assume that positioning rural women as point-of-sale (POS) agents encourages financial inclusion among women in Nigeria given how Covid-19 has adversely affected the lives of rural women. However, the assumption is silent regarding the risk of financial loss, stringent rules, and regulations some rural women may encounter while working as POS agents, as well as the physical risk associated with large sums of cash stored in unsecured terminals. Because poverty is regarded as the core cause of women's lack of economic empowerment, this is strongly related to the WID method of equity and anti-poverty to bring women into development. As a result, income/money generation becomes the focus to address gender equality. Additionally, the POS empowerment model enables rural women to earn money from the commissions of mobile banking transactions as supplementary income for the family by providing point-of-sale terminals and access to working capital through microcredit initiatives. It's interesting to highlight that while it's not the primary source of income but rather a secondary one, women may indirectly still rely on patriarchal institutional or economic systems to survive. I believe that POS may not be able to promote women's participation in the financial market due to a lack of women's preparedness, financial skills, and knowledge gaps, despite its endeavor to integrate rural women into the digital banking industry through informal pathways. Furthermore, the microcredit scheme is necessary for POS businesses to get off the ground.
In Nigeria, microcredit is synonymous with poverty alleviation, with rural women being the traditional targets and most vulnerable groups impacted by issues like geography, cultural norms, gender relations, unpaid work, and more. But the terms microfinance and microcredit are sometimes used synonymously. The Central Bank of Nigeria's regulatory laws and the top-down directives of the federal government to expand the availability of financial services for low-income communities through savings, loans, insurance, etc. are the main drivers of microfinance in Nigeria (Partnership for Economic Policy, 2011). While informal as well as formal organizations may be involved in microcredit, which consists of small loans for those who are below the poverty line. A type of microfinance is POS digital finance, and several contemporary microcredit programs in Nigeria are frequently governed by official regulatory frameworks for microfinance. Too much information! I know. As I write this, I feel puzzled as well, attempting to find where development and empowerment lie. Well, I'm not here to deduce if the POS business is a good or bad post-covid women's empowerment intervention; I'm just here to blog.
As was noted in the most recent class discussion, I believe microcredit programs have both advantages and disadvantages. Some benefits include giving women economic power, helping to feed households and meet basic needs, developing women’s power, encouraging networking among women, raising women's work skills, and creating opportunities at the grassroots level. Although the programs may not be perfect, restructuring them may improve the outcomes for women. Contrarily, some disadvantages discussed in class included a lack of consideration for the economic system's flaws, regulated rules/policies, restrictions/time constraints, silence over gendered scheme aspects, a deepening of gender inequality, and a strengthening of subordination because income generation is insufficient as an additional source of income and is not always the main source of income. This could also be seen as a component of western imperialism.
I'll wrap up with an insightful video below of Nigeria's Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), which has been dubbed Africa's largest microcredit scheme in 2020. I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this article.
Note- I coined the word ‘empoweree’
as the opposite of empowerer in this article’s context not a word in a
dictionary unlike empowerer (one who, or that which, empowers).
References
GEEP Nigeria. (2020, August 5). Africa’s largest
microcredit scheme. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/eITtJmHKzV0
Partnership for Economic Policy. (2011). Supporting Women’s empowerment through microcredit in rural Nigeria. https://www.pep-net.org/sites/pep-net.org/files/typo3doc/pdf/promotionnal_material/info-pep/Impact_Poster_Nigeria.pdf
Thank you for sharing. As I was reading through, I was reminded of Pearson’s article ‘Reassessing Paid Work and Women’s Empowerment: Lessons from the Global Economy’. In this article, Pearson discusses the ‘Engelian myth’ which promotes the assumption that women's empowerment and emancipation can be achieved by merely including them in the work force. Women are encouraged to aspire to "an (assumed male) norm of protected and regulated employment with all the concomitant benefits and social protection which such employment signals.......". It seems to me, this is exactly what is happening here. The NGOs, commercial banks and the government seem to be satisfied with just including women in the workforce as POS agents without taking the time to consider the problems they encounter in these roles. Problems that will hinder the “empowerment” that they are supposedly targeting. As a result, it seems instead of empowerment and emancipation, the contrary is produced i.e. women's problems intensify. Now these women have to deal with problems like financial loss, stringent rules and regulations, and the physical risks of storing large amounts of money in unsecured terminals. I think it is imperative that the government and these development agencies actually work to effectively practicalize women’s economic improvement and not just treat it as a task that should be checked off a development to do list. Only then, will real change take place.
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