Microfinance as post-conflict women’s economic development: issues in adopting a smart economic strategy

In post-conflict contexts, microfinance is introduced as a financial infrastructure for women to continue their everyday life within a broader economic recovery framework by supporting productive and social reproductive labour. However, the packaging of microfinance as smart economics with the goals of (1) promoting financial inclusion among women, increasing women’s economic empowerment, and (2) contributing to the national economy, complicate the matter. Using a multi-sited case study conducted in Sri Lanka in 2021 and 2022, this paper explores the productive and social reproductive challenges women borrowers face in microfinance programmes that adopt a smart economics approach in post-war zones through their everyday lived experiences. Building on the existing scholarship that stresses the increasing gendered violence and indebtedness that women borrowers experience in post-conflict zones due to microfinance, the paper explores the often-overlooked aspects of productive and social reproductive labour that women must navigate alongside these issues. By doing so, the study highlights the importance of considering the broader gendered structural issues that are imposed on women within such financial models and emphasises the urgent need to focus on alternative financial models that promote everyday financial and other forms of security to women.