Delegates from JICA Vietnam and Vietnam Women’s Union at the signing ceremony in Hanoi on November 28. (Photo courtesy of JICA) Hanoi (VNA) – The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)Vietnam Office and the Vietnam Women’s Union (VWU) signed a record ofdiscussions for the “project of promoting gender responsive financial inclusionthrough the Vietnam Women’s Union” in Hanoi on November 28.
The technical cooperation project is expected to be implemented from March 2019to March 2021. It aims at improving VWU’s capacity to promote development anddelivery of financial and non-financial services responding to the needs oflocal women.
Under the project, JICA and VWU will work together to provide training tofinancial service providers such as microfinance organisations and commercialbanks on the basis of gender-responsive financial inclusion and good practicesfrom other countries.
At the same time, the project will support selected financial service providersto develop new products which respond to the diversified needs of women atdifferent stages of life.
Lessons learnt and hands-on experiences from the project will be shared withVietnamese policymakers as references for advocacy in promoting financialinclusion.
In Vietnam, only 31 percent of adults have bank accounts. As few as 14 percentof adults have savings deposits at a financial institution and 21 percentborrowed money from formal financial institutions.
Although the majority of customers of microfinance services are women, thetypes of financial products available to them are quite limited.
International experiences have shown women’s financial inclusion generatesbenefits for society in addition to improvements in the wellbeing of women.
To encourage financial service providers to offer women-friendly products, anenabling policy environment is necessary and thus gender-responsiveness needsto be integrated into national financial inclusion policy.
To address these issues, in 2016, the Government of Vietnam asked theGovernment of Japan for technical cooperation to promote gender responsivefinancial inclusion.
For JICA, promoting gender equality and empowerment of women is crucial toachieve the “inclusive development” goal. - VNA
VNA
