Women’s Microfinance Initiative (WMI)’s mission is to assist impoverished rural East African women in building assets and gaining business skills so they can generate income on a long-term basis, improving their household living standards, and achieving financial independence.

WMI is a comprehensive microlending and training organization serving rural villages in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. Since 2008, WMI has issued over 107,000 loans, totaling more than $13 million, to village women across East Africa and has provided training and support to ensure their business ventures succeed. The program’s goal is to integrate women into the mainstream economy where they can use their business profits to improve household living conditions for their families. As borrowers gain business experience, they become empowered and self-confident, developing into advocates for themselves, their families, and their communities. WMI focuses exclusively on rural women’s entrepreneurship because of their systemic exclusion from access to financial services and their historic alienation from the benefits of small business ownership, plus the data that supports that economic empowerment of women translates into improved living conditions for the entire family.

The loan hubs are managed by village women WMI has trained. The interest collected on the loans remains in each loan hub’s bank account and pays for all local operational costs and outreach programs within the community. This model allows WMI’s loan hubs to become self-sustaining: each loan program can continue operating indefinitely without receiving additional financial support from WMI, as long as borrowers continue to repay their loans consistently.