Rwanda is a country near and dear to my heart and one where I am heavily involved. In my development work, I devote 90% of my resources to projects that largely benefit girls and women. Why? Because I get more bang for my buck. There is a much higher ROI. Women succeed where men fail.
It is thus with great joy that I can point this morning to a story in the Washington Post that touts the efforts of one of the non-profits with which I work, Vision Finance.
Officials at Vision Finance, the microloan arm of World Vision International that launched a program in 2005 in this town of 40,000, said that while women make up the majority of borrowers, four out of five defaulters are men.
“They say that women care more about the family, but I do not know if that is true,” Mukandayisenga said. “I think it has more to do with the self-control woman show in hard times. We know how to survive when men despair.”
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that women have been key in reconstructing Rwanda. In the effort to finance the reduction of poverty in the developing world, many leading experts said that women simply make better investments.
It is for me such a reward to see my work so well received. It is also something rather telling that in Rwanda the following is now the case:
Today women hold about 48 percent of the seats in Rwanda’s parliament, the highest percentage in the world. They also account for 36 percent of President Paul Kagame’s cabinet, holding the top jobs in the ministries of commerce, agriculture, infrastructure, foreign affairs and information.