September 2004

Contents: 1. This month's highlight: Top picks from programmes 2. Focus on GDRC: Lessons learnt on learning 3. What's New at GDRC's Website 4. Monthly Statistics for GDRC's Website 5. About GDRC Mosaic 6. Contact address This Months Highlight: Microfinance Access for Women from the GDRC Programme on Microcredit and Microfinance "Women always plough back the benefits of access to finance back to their households - how can this be enhanced?" Explaining why 94% of his loans go to women, Grameen Bank's Mohamed Yunus said, "Women have plans for themselves, for their children, about their home, the meals. They have a Vision. A man wants to enjoy himself." 'Engendering' microfinance, as any other intervention, requires gender awareness on the part of all staff, managerial commitment to gender issues, and managerial ability to adapt systems and procedures in the course of implementation. Gender-sensitive microfinance takes into account the needs and constraints of both men and women when designing and delivering finance programmes. This has to be done at all stages - identification, formulation, implementation and evaluation of the programme. Much has been learnt from recent microfinance programmes that have targeted women as the primary recipients of finance. Though microfinance is not the answer to all the problems that they face, it is a key enabler that can help them overcome them. These and related issues are covered as a special theme in GDRC' s programme on Microcredit and Microfinance. For further details, please see: http://www.gdrc.org/icm/wind/wind.html As with all sections of GDRC, contributions, comments and suggestions are always welcome from users and subscribers! Please contact GDRC's Coordinator at - mosaic@gdrc.org FOCUS ON GDRC: Eat an elephant bit by bit ... This section focuses on information management lessons learnt in coordinating GDRC's activities. There is a popular saying in South Africa - "Eat an elephant bit by bit" - when you have to eat an elephant, you cannot eat it in one gulp. You will have to eat it piece by piece, and digest it well. This applies very aptly to information delivery as well! Part of understanding the end user's information needs is to also understand how the information is used. This means that we should not bombard the user with a lot of information (much of which will not be used anyway). It has to delivered in little bits in a timely and efficient manner - so that the right action or decision can be taken. See: "Packaging Knowledge: An Information Continuum" http://www.gdrc.org/info-design/continuum/continuum.html WHAT'S NEW AT GDRC'S WEBSITE? - a selection All GDRC: Critical "So What" questions were added to each of the 15 programme's web pages. Environmental Decision-Making: Documents and Reports - The Decision Making Pyramid Gender and Development: Gender and Environment - Link to IUCN's initiative on gender and environment. Oceans, Coasts and Small Islands: Importance of Community Networking to Preserve Local Rivers Oceans, Coasts and Small Islands: Small Islands - Link to Pacific Islands Forum added Urban Environmental Management: Water Management - added 'Gender and Water Alliance' to GDRC's Gender Perspective pages. Urban Environmental Management: Water - Initiatives: Capacity Building Network For Integrated Water Resource Management MONTHLY STATISTICS FOR GDRC'S WEBSITE Total hits encountered - 660,724 Total files downloaded - 529,629 Total pages viewed - 215,460 Total web visitors - 67,137 Total KBytes - 4,806,445 Pages per day - Avg. 7,182; Max. 10,172 Visits per day - Avg. 2,237; Max. 3,122 ABOUT GDRC MOSAIC The "GDRC Mosaic" is a monthly email newsletter that provides information bites, and summarizes programme activities of GDRC, including new items added to the website. To subscribe: http://www.gdrc.org/about/newsletter.html To unsubscribe: unsubscribe-mosaic@gdrc.org Comments, suggestions and contributions: info-mosaic@gdrc.org CONTACT ADDRESS: Global Development Research Center 5-13-3-1601, Nakano-cho, Miyakojima-ku, Osaka 534-0027, Japan Tel / Fax: +(81-6) 6925-8005 Emial: info-mosaic@gdrc.org URL: http://www.gdrc.org/ © 2003-2005, GDRC. All rights reserved.