Appeal: Women bank on themselves in their struggle for survival

Arriving at the corporate headquarters of the Nissa Bank of Magta Lahjar, you are not struck by the idea that this is an influential financial institution.

The building is a single-storey, windowless, two-room concrete lock-up. Outside, there are are goats. And inside, no computer servers hum, but an old typewriter sits on an older desk beside a scattering of hand-written ledgers in Roman and Arabic script.

But appearances deceive and, in its own world, this bank, which Oxfam is helping to fund, has an influence as powerful as Natwest or Lloyds does in ours, and perhaps more so. For in a society where women come a poor second, this is a bank exclusively for women, run by women alone.

The Islamic Republic of Mauritania can be surprisingly pro-active in the matter of female empowerment, and it set up a State Secretariat for Women's Affairs in 1992. Among the most important needs it identified for women's advancement, "micro-credit" loomed large.

The loans involved are typically about £150, repayable over six months. Not much, but it means a lot to women struggling to raise large families who are excluded from the conventional banking system because they do not have the assets to guarantee a loan.

Five years ago Mauritania set up its experimental Nissa Banks (nissa being the Arabic for women) with the aim of helping women to help themselves. A dozen or so are operating now, and they are a runaway success.

At Magta Lahjar, the success is partly down to the personality of its chairwoman and chief executive, Aichetou Demba. A large woman of 45, she has an infectious laugh underlain by determination and a natural authority that cannot be faked. She knows everyone in Magta Lahjar, a bustling commercial town, and everyone knows her. A nurse married to a policeman, aged 45, she knows about women with big families too, as she has 12 children of her own.

Ms Demba is clear about the bank's aims – "to help women struggle against poverty" – and is eloquent about how many women are abandoned by husbands. She is as clear about her management procedures, because, as American bankers remind us, if you run a hamburger stall and you don't have management, you go broke. She has total funding, in Mauritanian ouguiyas, of about £7,500, of which the first half was given by the UN children's agency, Unicef, and the second half by Oxfam.

Together with her friend, the bank treasurer Elbetoul Boushab, she has over the past five years approved 600 loans to local women, often of small sums and for enterprises from butcher's stalls and fish stalls to dressmaking circles. As Islam does not allow interest, a standard 6 per cent for expenses is deducted from every loan, and there is a six-month repayment period.

How is repayment guaranteed? First, the loans are made through women's communes (there are nearly 150) and the debtor always has to have another commune to stand as guarantor. Second, there is the shame factor of the annual general meeting. This takes place every December at Ms Demba's house, a capacious building in a sandy courtyard. More than 300 people are present, including the prefect, mayor, press and two representatives from every commune. It lasts for two days and the women sleep in tents in the courtyard. Between them they consume four sheep, along with rice, pasta and potatoes.

They go through the record for the year and no one, but no one, wants to hear their name read out as a late payer, Ms Demba avers. It works. The sisters are doing it for themselves.

But what if a man comes and asks for a loan? Ms Demba looked at Ms Boushab. Ms Boushab grinned and looked back at Ms Demba, and the pair fell about laughing.

"They do come, and we tell them," said Ms Demba, struggling to stop laughing, "we tell them to look at the sign. We say, can't you read? This is a women's bank." They were still laughing when I left.