UN Agencies Back Microcredit Agencies in Fight Against HIV/AIDS

UN agencies on Tuesday endorsed a call for microcredit institutions -- which extend small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans -- to branch out into adult education to help fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Women in the Third World represent more than three-quarters of the estimated 26.8 million poorest people who have microcredit. Advocates met in New York at the Microcredit Summit Plus Five conference, which was called to review progress toward the 1997 goal of providing finance to 100 million of the world's poorest people by 2005.

Chris Dunford, president of the California-based NGO Freedom from Hunger, said, "microfinance is a very powerful delivery system for complimentary services," and could be used to educate people about HIV/AIDS. The Foundation for Credit and Community Assistance in eastern Uganda, Dunford said, offers 13,048 village women information on health, nutrition, family planning and running small businesses. FFH has helped produce two training manuals to encourage changes in personal behavior to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, break down disease-related stigmas, and help in coping with "basic things such as preparing a will and ensuring that [clients] have legal ownership over their assets, so they can pass them on to their families," he said.

Microcreditors were also looking at loan insurance, said Dunford. "You cannot get life insurance if you are HIV-positive or if you have AIDS, so it helps to have a guarantee that your loan will be paid if you die," he said.

UNICEF Deputy Director Kul Gautam told the conference, "it would be a grave loss of an opportunity not to include information about HIV/AIDS into microcredit training." One of the benefits of microfinance is that it reduces domestic violence as women's self-esteem and status rise with increased earning power, he said.

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