Financial Promise for the Poor
How Groups Build Microsavings
Edited by Kim Wilson ,  Malcolm Harper ,  Matthew Griffith
Hardback: 978 1 56549 340 7
Price: $75.00  

Paperback: 978 1 56549 339 1
Price: $24.95  

Publisher: Kumarian Press
June 2010 , 256 pp., 6" x 9"
illus
* Balanced assessment of recent savings-led programs in microfinance
* Contributors include wide range of scholars and practitioners

The entry of the private sector into financial services for the poor is a relatively new development, but already the glossy promises of credit-led microfinance are facing scrutiny from the development community. Policymakers and economists have begun picking through the hype of microfinance to identify where and how top-down loans might fit into broader human development efforts. To many, the answer involves shifting focus to another financial service: savings. Serving as a strong and perhaps more effective tool than microcredit, microsavings is quickly becoming a lauded poverty-alleviation tool.

Contributors to Financial Promise for the Poor cover current innovations in microsavings happening around the world. They describe how savings group members in the developing world are avoiding many of the financial liabilities and debt of other microfinance programs while gaining skills and finding opportunities in collective enterprise. The turn from credit to savings speaks to the growing empowerment of individuals and communities as they break the bonds of indebtedness and find their own paths to financial security.

Table of Contents:
Part 1: Do-It-Yourself Finance; 1) Teacups and Hand-Hoes: Home-Grown Savings Groups in East Africa - Elke Jahns; 2) Dhukuti – A Real Treasure: The Growth of a Savings Group Idea in Nepal - Shailee Pradhan; 3) From Self-Help Groups to Village Financial Institutions in Bali: How Culture Determines Finance and Finance Determines Culture - Hans Dieter Seibel; 4) On an Informal Frontier: The ASCAs of Lower Assam - Abhijit Sharma and Brett Hudson Matthews; Part Two: Now They Need Us (Or Do They?); 5) Revisiting the Early Days of CARE’s Savings Groups: Interview with Moira Eknes, Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) Program Originator - Kristin Helmore; 6) The Savings Experience: Catholic Relief Services El Salvador - Mabel Guevara and Bridget Bucardo Rivera; 7) Saving Cash and Saving the Herd: The Role of Savings Groups in the Lives of East African Pastoralists - Matthew Griffith; 8) Informal Group-Based Savings Services: The Indian Experience - Girija Srinivasan and N. Srinivasan; Part Three: More Ways of Skinning the Cat, and Different Kinds of Cats; 9) Jipange Sasa: A Little Heaven of Local Savings, Hot Technologies, and Formal Finance - Kim Wilson; 10) Retrofitting an Agricultural Program with Savings-Led Microfinance: The Oxfam Experience in Cambodia - Vinod Parmeshwar and Yang Saing Koma; 11) Virtual Staff: Exploring a Franchise and Incentive Model for Group Replication - Anthony Murathi, Nelly Otieno, and Paul Rippey; 12) Market-Led Expansion through Fee-for-Service Agents - Julie Zollmann and Guy Vanmeenen; 13) The Green Box: The Savings Systems of Smallholder Farmers in Southern Haiti - Kim Wilson and Gaye Burpee; 14) Adapting the Bachat Committee: Helping Pakistan’s Urban and Rural Poor Save Better - Wajiha Ahmed; Part Four: Sinking, Swimming, and Staying Afloat; 15) Women’s Empowerment Through Literacy, Banking and Business: The WORTH Program in Nepal, Post-Program Research Findings - Marcia Odell; 16) Savings Groups and Village Development in Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountain Range - Wajiha Ahmed and Joanna Ledgerwood; 17) A Snapshot of Oxfam’s Saving for Change Program in El Salvador - Eloisa Devietti and Janina Matuszeski; Part Five: An Alternative, or Something Different Altogether?; 18) The Savings-Led Revolution: Mass-Scale, Group Managed Microfinance for the Rural Poor - Jeffrey Ashe; 19) Pushing the Rich World’s Debt Crisis On to the Poorest: Why Savings Groups Should Not Rush to Borrow From Banks - Hugh Allen; 20) More! Better! Cheaper! Savings Groups as Commodities - Paul Rippey; 21) The Box and the Ark - Kim Wilson, Malcolm Harper, and Matthew Griffith


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Reviews & Endorsements:
“Rich in interesting examples of both traditional and NGO facilitated savings groups. I would particularly highlight the thought provoking and important questions raised in the last chapters. The editors remind us that there is no magic bullet to resolving poverty, and that we as practitioners must remain sober about our role and the effects of our interventions. A most welcome contribution to the field!”
- Moira Eknes, Senior Advisor at CARE Norway
“Savings groups are the core engine of financial assets for the poor and this book gives us a rare view of them that cuts across geography, structures and degrees of institutionalization. This collection provides an honest view of savings groups – what they are and what they are not – and as such offers readers a perspective of how these important mechanisms fit within the financial lives of the poor.”
- Daryl Collins, Senior Associate, Bankable Frontier Associates
Related Titles by Subject:
See Microfinance ( International Development )