Targeting women as a general principle, however, is not sufficient to guarantee their empowerment. Possible effects on gender relations have to be considered in the design stage of a project, which is best achieved by giving future clients a full participatory role from the very beginning. We support specific and focused initiatives to enhance women's empowerment in our own programs and in our work with relevant national and multilateral organizations. The local NGO, which started lending to micro and small enterprises through solidarity groups in 1995, has a credible plan for achieving financial sustainability in the medium-term. Only by achieving full financial sustainability will MFIs continue to gain access to the funding they need to maximize their outreach to the poor.
Impact assessment is vital to ensure that poor people are benefitting from the programs.
Again, I applaud the Microcredit Summit's efforts to identify and disseminate cost-effective tools for measuring impact. We encourage institutions to set quantifiable targets for poverty reduction, and to measure progress towards these. The major share of funds allocated for micro- finance activities directly support these core themes, although it would be very difficult to quantify each of them separately. All of the microfinance institutions we support target poor microentrepreneurs with their services. We are keen to support the development of similar special programs targeted to assist the poorest households.