Posted in Microfinance, Village institutions, VSLA, tagged ASCA, diversification, India, micro-audit, savings association, village bank on October 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »
No 'village bank' for us!
NGO projects often discourage villagers from joining more than VSLA or other savings association. Why?
While consulting with MicroSave in 2008 I visited Mazarpara village in Lower Assam with Abhijit Sharma of the Indian Institute of Bank Management (Guwahati). In this economically active but poor village near Guwahati ‘accumulating savings and credit associations’ (ASCAs) started over 3 decades ago. The average household (among 72) held investments (more…)
Posted in The village, VSLA, tagged ASCA, field research, IPA, RCT, ROSCA, VSLA on October 8, 2011| 4 Comments »
At the Arusha Savings Group Summit, Bram Thuysbaert (Yale) and Beniamino Savonitto from Innovations for Poverty Action presented early evidence from a 2-year study of the impact of CARE’s savings associations (VSLAs) in Uganda, using randomized control trials. The results were unexpected.
The study compared ‘treatment’ villages where savings associations had been formed with ‘control’ villages where they had not. Conference delegates were told that members’ investments (more…)
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