Jeffrey Ashe
, Director, Grassroots Finance Action (grassrootsfinanceaction.org), and Columbia University , USA
13 July 2022
Hi Philip, Thanks for the clarification. What you have come up with is an innovative approach for adding to the liquidity of savings groups. This is a real improvement over linking savings groups to loans from banks which is being promoted in Africa now, the NABARD Self-Help Group Bank Linkage initiative in India and Finca's early work that linked village banks to a line of credit. All of these are loan programs with all the difficulties this leads to and the completely distinct motivation of lenders who want to make money and the needs of the village women who make up most of the members of these groups. I was Oxfam America's Director of Community Finance and the twenty-five local organizations we partnered with in Mali, Senegal, Cambodia, El Salvador and Guatemala might be interested in your product.
Hi Philip, Thanks for the clarification. What you have come up with is an innovative approach for adding to the liquidity of savings groups. This is a real improvement over linking savings groups to loans from banks which is being promoted in Africa now, the NABARD Self-Help Group Bank Linkage initiative in India and Finca's early work that linked village banks to a line of credit. All of these are loan programs with all the difficulties this leads to and the completely distinct motivation of lenders who want to make money and the needs of the village women who make up most of the members of these groups. I was Oxfam America's Director of Community Finance and the twenty-five local organizations we partnered with in Mali, Senegal, Cambodia, El Salvador and Guatemala might be interested in your product.