Women’s World Banking (WWB) is the global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to the financial tools and resources they require to build security and prosperity. WWB continues to equip financial institutions from all over the world with in-depth market research, with sustainable financial products and consumer education to meet women’s needs.
It is crucial to unveil practices in the financial sector and social norms that prevail in society which inhibit women’s access to and use of financial services, even when legislation and regulation do not restrict them. To this end, I have been helping the research team to do an investigation that aims to gain insight into the actual practices of financial and other service providers regarding women’s access to finance. In addition, we are analyzing societal norms regarding women’s participation in the financial sector, and women’s perception of practices that create barriers to financial services. I have been examining the social and cultural norms surrounding women entrepreneurs in countries such as Kenya, India, Philippines, and Brazil.
Working at WWB is a wonderful experience to put in practice the skills you acquire in the IPED program. It helped me to understand how important it is to learn the methods to collect and analyze data and to know which are the main sources of statistics in academia. As students we tend to underestimate the great advantage of having access to the best databases and the invaluable Fordham library.