Design and Management of Microcredit Programme

Publication Date: 2004
Published by: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Document Type: Case Study

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Savings and credit activities encourage women to integrate with the larger economy

This paper is second in a series of four case studies of a savings and credit based micro finance program of Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), a NGO working in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The study was commissioned by the UNDP office in India and was sponsored by the ICICI Bank.

SSP supports women's savings and credit programs by promoting SHGs and linking them with banks and other sources of funds. This paper focuses on the organizational perspective and management of the Savings and Credit Group (SCG) processes, which includes:

• Creating a horizontal base for savings and credit activities, and training women's groups in financial skills;
• Addressing social and economic issues through collective action by SCGs;
• Creating SCG-clusters as learning and networking units;
• Creating teams to organize cluster level activities;
• Facilitating dialogues among women and institutions of the state.

• Opening up spaces for women's participation, particularly in the context of local planning;
• Building women's capacities to address local development agendas by articulating their concerns, interacting with other actors, building alliances among women's collectives and managing local resources;
• Creating new institutional arrangements that respond to the needs of poor women through partnerships with mainstream institutions.