FINAL WORDS:
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
This paper tried to analyse whether microfinance can be an
appropriate tool to address the street children issue and pointed out several
findings:
1. On the demand side:
Street children do highly need financial services. Mainly
working for meeting their own and their families' present and future
expenditures, street children find difficult to meet those expenditures and
face two main obstacles.
First, the street life insecurity makes their environment
highly unsecured, pushing them to spend quickly their money in order to avoid
somebody stealing it from them, which can make the child enter into a vicious
circle, and hence increasing his/her vulnerability. This calls therefore for
the need of savings, structured around three pillars:
life-cycle needs; emergency costs and opportunities.
Second, some street children have been found to very active in
harmful and hazardous jobs, which give them e few income and increases their
vulnerability, and needed therefore to be proposed a protected working
opportunity which could both increase their income and empowers them. This
calls therefore for the need of credit, in order to gain access to capital
which could allows them to start their desired business activity and, hence,
improve their future.
2. On the supply side:
Several findings have been highlighted:
1. Although the street children demand is high, our findings
tend to demonstrate that the supply is still too low, and mainly concentrated
on some youth serving organisations.
2. Microfinance, as a process of producing and delivering
financial services to poor people, can be an effective tool in addressing the
street children issue if the financial services are carefully designed and
delivered, and if, first, vocational training is provided to street children.
Moreover, in order to be operational, this framework has to be completed with
social services. It is only such comprehensive framework which could be
effective and sustainable in addressing street children, if managed with
accuracy. This is costly to administer though and those holistic programs can
hardly be financially sustainable. However, if it tries to minimize the costs,
and to maximize the ability and commitment of the organisation to deliver those
services in the long, the program can be sustainable and minimize the amount of
subsidies needed in order to be viable in the long-term.
3. From a delivery perspective, this paper argues that the
most effective and sustainable way to provide such programs would be the youth
serving organizations, but that some forms of partnerships with microfinance
institutions can be profitable for both organisations. However, this
partnership needs to be well designed and settled, in order to avoid problems
of coordination, and to loose time and money
4. Our case study did enlighten several elements:
ü It demonstrates that an MFI which wants to start such
activity in an independent way must have a «core competence on street
children». Padakhep is, in this regards, like «two organisations in
one». However, if such competence does not exist (which will be most
probably the case), partnerships (discussed above) can be a good solution.
ü It demonstrates the difficulties that a partnership
MFI/YSO can face, if considering the «youth section» and the
«microfinance section» of Padakhep as two different entities.
ü It demonstrates how important it is to have a uniform
program, with a clear design and logical sequencing of interventions, with an
appropriate design and delivery process of «financial services»,
«vocational training» and «social services».
ü It demonstrates the necessity to frame such a program
completely part of the youth development program, centralizing the level of
management and decision in the youth program, in order
to ensure a long-term viability, as well as a good
management and follow-up.
One of the main outcomes of this paper is the design of a
microfinance for street children program taking into account the
multidimensional aspects that are part of the street children., which is
essentially aimed at stimulating further debates about the future.
Moreover, this future will need to be oriented around 6 axis
of attention:
1. Our model, although aimed at maximizing the effectiveness
with a minimum amount of subsidies, is not financially sustainable. This calls
therefore to the necessity, for donors and governments, to mobilize their funds
for investing in such programs, in order to empower street children and to
fight against the street children predicament. Without this financial help,
such programs can hardly be effective.
2. Our model has been thought from the specific context of
street children in Bangladesh. This calls therefore to the necessity to
redesign and readjust this model to the street children characteristics and
demand drivers in other countries.
3. The previous point calls therefore to the necessity to
assess, by using participatory tools, the demand drivers of street children in
other parts of the world, in order to check similarities and differences
between contexts, and to design programs tailored to their needs, and not to
the «adult conceptions of street children needs».
4. The YSO can face reluctance in providing financial services
to street children and one of the core reasons might be the organisation's
working philosophy. So, considerable awareness has, in our view, to be raised
to change the working paradigm of youth serving organisations.
5. One particular issue facing organisations desiring to start
such activities is the «regulation process». Lobbying governments in
order to find ways to redesign their regulation legislations may be needed in
some parts of the world.
6. Beyond the question of street children, this papers is
aimed at opening the scope of interventions, research and debate for
«youth» and «at risk youth» in developing countries, to
assess how they can benefit from microfinance. Chemonics International, under
USAID, is the first to have start such programs. Other agencies must therefore
initiate such researchs.
Finally, although «Microfinance for street children»
appeared in this paper to be an appropriate tool to address the street children
issue, it remains an intervention tool for children already in street
situations. This calls therefore to the imperative, for governments and
international organisations, to raise concern about the street children issue
in order to prevent children turning to the streets, and hence
improve their children's and society's well-being.
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