Savings groups tap into the vast, underutilized potential of smart people to solve their own problems.
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Members save what they can weekly in a communal pot and loan their growing funds to members. Annually, timed for when money is scarcest, the pot is divided according to how much each member saved plus each mem- ber’s share of the interest. Every cent saved over the cycle plus interest is returned to the members.
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1. Start small to learn, but plan for scale
2. Simple is better than complex.
3. Build on what is already in place and already widely understood.
4. Design for change that persists long after outside agents leave and that spreads from village to village without outside staff.
5. Keep costs low
6. Give nothing away
7. Insist on local control
8. Establish high performance standards and insist on meeting them.
9. Build learning and innovation into program design
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[Jeff Ashe ]built from what [he] learned in Nepal, and later in India and Zimbabwe, to launch and lead the Oxfam America/Freedom from Hun- ger Saving for Change initiative that has, since 2005, trained and supported savings groups with 650,000 women members in thousands of villages across Mali, Senegal, Cambodia, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
Learn more about photos below in Jeffrey Ashe’s book about microfinance saving groups.
The introduction of Saving for Change in a new community starts with the approval of the village authorities.
The first group is trained by an animator (in blue) from a partner NGO.
The volunteer replicating agent trains groups, with an illustrated manual to guide the discussion.
Each week members gather to save and borrow.
The box keeper takes the locked cashbox out of hiding and brings it to the group.
Each woman in turn deposits her saving and repays the interest or principal on her loan.
At the end of the cycle, each member receives back all that she saved, plus her share of the interest.
Even with low literacy levels, group treasurers created a way of record keeping by placing pebbles in a small bag.
Carrying their wooden stools on their heads, women from one group walk to visit another.
Loans are used for many purposes. This woman used her loan to stock her business.
A collective enterprise set up in a Saving for Change group produces sambal, a nutritious sauce, in the city marketplace.
The man at the left, from an NGO in Cambodia, trains the group secretary to keep records.
Women in Mali garden collectively and sell what they grow in the market. Their Saving for Change group helps them manage their resources through the seasons.
Group trained in the prevention and treatment of malaria. The blue picture card shows the steps.
Saving for Change youth groups spring up spontaneously, even though fostering them was not part of the program. This group in Cambodia shows how important these groups are to their members.
Meetings are communal affairs, with children looking on and sometimes participating. A treasurer counts money while her daughter looks on.
Savings for Change groups often serve as platforms for other community initiatives. In Guatemala, the woman on the right successfully organized the groups in her region to campaign and vote for women mayors in their communities.
The secretary and the treasurer of a group in Guatemala keep track of the transactions in their groups. Next page: A Saving for Change meeting is not only about saving and borrowing—it is also a chance to have fun. A Saving for Change member dances for her group in Mali.
The group’s officers open the meeting with a recitation of the bylaws.
Grassroot Microfinance in Mali
Eight years later, nearly 450,000 women had joined Saving for Change groups in Mali, in addition to the 143,000 villagers in Mali who had joined similar projects sponsored by CARE, the 40,000 who were part of Plan International projects, and the 30,000 who had joined groups trained by CRS. By early 2014, a total of 695,589 savings group members were trained in Mali among the four organizations.
—Excerpt from In Their Own Hands: How Savings Groups Are Revolutionizing Development by Jeffrey Ashe
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