This report shares case studies from six countries that detail how advocacy, partnerships, and tailored regulatory frameworks have fostered supportive legal environments for Savings Groups (SGs), promoting their growth, sustainability, and integration into formal financial systems while preserving their essential informality.

The role of executive leadership is key for microfinance institutions to move successfully towards the digital future.

Scale2Save partners FINCA and Centenary Bank in Uganda go from competition to cooperation, sharing service-distribution infrastructure for the benefit of end-user low-income customers.

More radical organizational change - in the form of self-management - is needed to solve microfinance’s optimization problem. 

What can financial cooperatives and their supervisors do to manage the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic?

Based on the evidence thus far, the global pandemic has the potential to deal a one-two punch: a major global health crisis and a global economic crisis that will persist well after the slowing down of the immediate health emergency. While these shocks affect everyone, women - who comprise 1.5 billion of the world’s low-wage workers and twice as many of its carers - may be particularly vulnerable to the economic and health crises that unfold in the wake of COVID-19.