Who is doing savings-led finance? During the SEEP conference working group on savings-led financial services, these groups were mentioned (besides the 1,000s of NGOs doing savings-led in India): Pact, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), CARE, Oxfam, Freedom from Hunger, Aga Khan Foundation, CONCERN Worldwide, and of course, HOPE International.
How many savings groups were out there, say, at the beginning of 2007? Here's the representation from these big 3 organizations:
January 2007: CARE, Oxfam, CRS
220,000 - Niger
90,000 - Mali
75,000 - Zimbabwe
75,000 - Uganda
45,000 - Tanzania
30,000 - Mozambique
29,000 - Cambodia
25,000 - Kenya
25,000 - Rwanda
20,000 - Ecuador
17,000 - Malawi
10,000 - Ethiopia
10,000 - Afghanistan
7,000 - Sierra Leone
6,000 - Angola
6,000 - Eritrea
4,000 - Lesotho/South Africa
3,500 - Senegal
1,000 - Zambia
1,948,500 - TOTAL
CARE wants to scale up their savings-led programs – Village Savings & Loan (VSL) – from 1.2 million to 30 million groups through a new grant they've received.
Oxfam/Freedom from Hunger are also growing their "Saving for Change" program with the help of a generous Gates grant, and they are planning for 400% increase in membership over 3 years.
The excitement about savings-led is its reach to the poorest poor as well as its organic growth and replication; also, people are empowered by starting small and keeping their funds in their community.
HOPE has savings-led programs in Rwanda and India, and we are planning to expand to reach the harder places and also further empower the church to participate in addressing poverty and reconciling communities.
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