[1]Francisco Barquero [2], WCCN's Loan Fund Representative in Nicaragua, completed his Ph.D. in 2002 with this doctoral dissertation, which examines a case study of the "Hand-in-Hand" community bank in Waslala, Nicaragua. It found three main factors that determine the success of women's participation in lending programs.
- Lending programs are more effective if women know that loans will be available to those who repay.
- Successful women belonged to borrower groups whose coordinators were democratically elected and in which all group members carried out monitoring and peer pressure. Likewise, frequent group meetings and the strength of internal communication in the group were determinants of women's success.
- Certain social and economic conditions determined the degree of social participation. In particular, there was a break-even amount of assets that allowed credit access to be more effective. Below this cutoff, poor women were more concerned with survival than productivity. Likewise, women living in isolated conditions were less successful than those living in more integrated locations.