Giulia Zaratti and Katherine Miles
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Creating a gender-responsive policy environment
A gender-responsive policy environment can help advance women’s financial inclusion in Myanmar. In practice, this means acknowledging and accounting for prevailing gender norms that influence policy. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, it is timely to consider how Myanmar can achieve a gender-responsive policy environment.
To seek answers, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), supported by the Australian Government (DFAT) as part of its Gender Equality Fund (GEF), conducted a gender assessment. This assessment identifies policy and regulatory constraints and enablers to women’s financial inclusion in Myanmar. This work builds on UNCDF’s Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations (SHIFT) ASEAN programme, which aims to expand women’s economic empowerment through financial inclusion in the Least Developed Countries of ASEAN.
“In Myanmar, while there are similar levels of financial inclusion (formal and informal access) between women (69 per cent) and men (70 per cent), men have higher rates of formal financial inclusion (50 per cent) compared to women (46 per cent).”
Through stakeholder interviews and a consultation workshop in Yangon, we shed light on four opportunities. These are:
The Government of Myanmar has supported many regional and global processes that focus on gender rights. This includes support for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Beijing +25 process, and commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs).
Each of these can be enablers for the country to advance women’s financial inclusion. For instance, as part of its commitment to the SDGs, the government developed the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan. This plan recognises financial inclusion as an important goal to enable broader development. But these commitments are not always translated in the country’s regional commitments or nationally in different policy areas.
To respond, UNCDF, through its regional and country programming, is providing technical support to advance several aspects of women’s financial access, usage and control.
At the regional level, ASEAN members have made financial inclusion a priority through the Working Commitee on Financial Inclusion (WC-FINC). But, this committee has not set objectives that are sex-disagregated. This is in spite of the goal of the ASEAN Committee on Women to increase women entrepreneurs’ access to credit. There is scope for greater policy coherence on women’s financial inclusion within ASEAN. There is opportunity for Myanmar to advocate for this policy coherence at regional level.
As a regular partner of the WC-FINC, UNCDF can also provide policy support and data analysis for members and promote greater ASEAN level policy coherence and action on women’s financial inclusion.
The lack of policy coherence is also present at the national level. To date, the Government has not adopted a legal definition of discrimination against women in line with CEDAW. Also, the Myanmar National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women 2013-2022 (NSPAW) prioritizes women in the economy. But it does not acknowledge the constraints in women’s access to credit or other forms of financial services. It also does not mention a need to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to address this.
UNCDF is working with the Women’s Participation Technical Working Group to support the implementation of priorities within the NSPAW. As a result, policy briefs, developed with UNCDF input, acknowledge barriers to women’s financial inclusion. In particular, these policy briefs highlight barriers such as women’s lower level of collateral to access credit due to customary inheritance practices, as well as discrimination in the land and property registration process.
The existence of a national financial inclusion strategy (NFIS) is a solid basis for progress. But there is opportunity to enhance the gender-responsiveness of the Myanmar Financial Inclusion Roadmap.
It is clear that NFIS need to recognize the differences between men and women’s access and use of financial services. Indeed, UNCDF and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Financial Inclusion Strategy Peer Learning Group (FIS PLG), developed guidance on the topic. Yet, the Myanmar Financial Inclusion Roadmap does not include any policies to address gender-differences in financial access. It also does not focus on usage or sex-disaggregated quantitative objectives and targets for women and men. Doing so in future iterations of the roadmap would conform to global good practice.
There is also an opportunity to incentivise the collection of sex-disaggregated supply side data. UNCDF is supporting financial service providers (FSPs) with the collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated supply-side data. This is part of the institutional gender based self-assessment toolkit (GSAT). To complement this, UNCDF is working with the Government and Central Bank of Myanmar through training on the collection and use of sex-disaggregated data from the regulators’ perspective.
There is scope to install policy initiatives that boost women’s participation in FSPs and financial regulatory institutions. This includes gathering national level data on women’s workforce participation in the sector. UNCDF is helping to address this by working with local partners to improve their institutional policies and practices on gender and women’s workforce participation.
Social norms can mediate financial access and usage in Myanmar. Addressing indirect and demand side constraints in the enabling environment is critical to achieving women’s financial inclusion. While there are high levels of possession of national identification documents among women, constraints do exist in accessing passports and obtaining identification documents, particularly in conflict areas. For example, a married woman cannot apply for a passport in the same way as a married man, which may have implications for women’s ability to get a passport. Moreover, women are less likely to hold driving licenses due to social norms.
There is an opportunity to advocate a change in the law so that women can apply for passports in the same way as men. This is a key issue highlighted by the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law project. Doing so will provide women with many forms of identification to meet customer due diligence requirements. Indeed, this was an issue explored in greater depth at the international level by UNCDF in collaboration with AFI. The result was a global guidance on gender considerations in balancing financial inclusion and anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism.
The 2016 National Land Use Policy guarantees women and men with equal inheritance rights over land. But customary practices prevail in the inheritance of property and land. This is compounded by discrimination in the land and property registration process. As a result of these practices, women are more limited in accessing productive assets, such as land. To support women’s access to credit, there is an opportunity for policy makers to conduct campaigns to raise awareness of equal rights to inheritance. This may target people living in ethnic and rural regions where customary law is often applied.
In another example, while women can register a business in the same way as men, existing policy fails to acknowledge that women face greater hurdles. Conducting a gender analysis on the constraints faced by entrepreneurs in registering their business would be a useful exercise.
Gender based violence (GBV) and sexual harassment is a problem in Myanmar. It has an impact on women’s labour force participation in FSPs and regulatory institutions. It can also constrain their mobility to financial access points.
Although Myanmar ratified CEDAW in 1997 and is a signatory of international treaties that condemn GBV, there is no specific law that requires the prohibition of sexual harassment and violence (including domestic violence) against women. To address this legal gap, the Prevention and Protection of Violence Against Women Bill (PoVAW Law) has been in development since 2013. But it needs to be adopted and aligned with CEDAW and other international standards.
There is scope for advocacy groups to highlight GBV as a constraint to women’s financial inclusion. The Central Bank of Myanmar and the Ministry of Finance should also acknowledge the link in their financial inclusion policies and strategies going forward.
The examples profiled are only a selection of the constraints and opportunities for action found in the gender assessment of the policy and regulatory constraints and enablers to women’s financial inclusion in Myanmar.
It is now necessary to take steps to overcome these constraints and leverage the opportunities. UNCDF, in collaboration with its country and regional policy and FSP partners, are already taking action. This includes new initiatives that respond to the gaps highlighted through this assessment, such as boosting the gathering and capturing of sex-disaggregated financial inclusion data.
The changes needed won’t happen overnight as policy processes take time. It will also need financial resources, technical support and capacity building, better sex-disaggregated data, and the facilitation of enhanced coordination between government bodies and stakeholders.
But a willingness to invest time to address these constraints will create a more gender-responsive policy environment. Taking advantage of these opportunities can help advance women’s financial inclusion and broader economic growth in Myanmar.
© Katherine S Miles Consulting Ltd (t/a Anthropogender)
