Guide / Toolkit

Mata Masu Dubara - Womens Savings and Credit Groups - Training Guide

How do women benefit from a savings and credit association?
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This paper offers a detailed picture of the Mata Masu Dubara (MMD) project funded by CARE International in Niger.

It presents the following details about the project:

  • Goal:
    • To help women cope with their responsibilities in an unfavorable socio-economic and religious environment;
    • To improve the socio-economic conditions of rural and poor urban women by offering them access to a permanent system of savings and credit.
  • Method:
    • Women were trained in crafts production and other economic activities, so that they could increase their household incomes;
    • Women contributed individual savings to a savings and credit fund, which made small loans to the members;
    • They started organizing and operating their own savings and credit associations.
  • Expansion and replication:
    • CARE has extended the project to three other departments in the country;
    • To meet increasing demand, CARE has also begun training village agents in the MMD methodology;
    • Women's groups in neighboring villages have replicated the methodology.
  • Advantages:
    • No external funds involved;
    • Simplicity and transparency;
    • Increased savings.
  • Limits:
    • Small loans;
    • Short loan period limits long term investments.
  • Socio-economic impact:
    • Increase in participants' livelihood security;
    • Maintenance of existing levels of economic investment;
    • Increase in the feeling of economic and social independence;
    • Increase in the ability to maintain social support networks.

The paper concludes by describing the three phases in which the project is implemented.

About this Publication

By Delsol, A.
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