Women’s economic development is mostly undermined by the weakness of microfinance in Lebanon || Newspapers (Arabic)

The weakness of the micro-credit sector in Lebanon and its inefficiency negatively affects women’s chance for economic empowerment since they tend to resort to this form of financial assistance to start up their small economic initiatives.  According to a new report published by the Economist, the weakness of government policies and political instability contribute to a failure in creating an enabling environment for microfinance as, according to the Economist, the Lebanese government is not able to regulate financial transactions of micro-credit institutions.  In addition, this sector is not considered to be a priority for the Central Bank of Lebanon especially since the former does not enjoy any mechanism for resolving contentious legal issues between lenders and borrowers.  As such, the Economic international monitor for micro-financial ranked Lebanon in position 44 out of 55 countries covered by the 2012 review.  Lebanon also ranked 11 out of 15 MENA countries included in the review and 12th out of 16 countries of middle to upper income, according to the weekly newsletter released by Byblos Bank last week.
However, the Economist noted that microfinance is still a promising sector with good prospects of extending in rural areas and noting that currently there are around 20 micro-finance institutions, all of which are non-governmental organisations based in the cities and not in rural areas.  The same sources indicated that the “Al Qard al Hassan” has some 69,000 clients and ‘Imkaan’ has 10,000 thus making these two institutions the biggest in the sector in Lebanon.

Source: Annahar 06 November 2012