Alliance of Students Against Poverty

Oxfam America-Saving for Change

Sometimes just having a safe place to save, or access to a small loan can help a family work its way out of poverty. Microfinance institutions allow people, who do not have access to credit, the chance to borrow a small amount of money. Once the borrower pays back the loan, they are able to increase the loan amount, giving them a chance to build small businesses or homes. Oxfam is moving away from the traditional microfinance model by creating large numbers of savings and credit groups in the poorest regions of the world who share their savings and make loans to each other with their own resources instead of taking out a loan from a bank, credit union or microfinance institution.

Through their Saving for Change program, Oxfam helps very poor people in Mali, Senegal, and Cambodia improve their livelihoods and build a better future by improving their access to financial services. They accomplish this by:

Supporting village groups that act as their own community banks. Savings group members save, lend, and pay each other interest. In this way, they don’t need to take on debt from a credit provider, moneylender, or intermediary.
Villagers get a safe place to save, easy access to loans, and interest that grows the group fund.
Savings groups bring community members together so they can work together on other development initiatives.

Since Saving for Change was launched in April 2005, 47,653 Malian women organized into more than 2,166 groups have reported saving and borrowing through village groups with these results:

85% accessed basic financial services for the first time.
98% took out a loan from their groups.
39% started new businesses - selling firewood, petty trading, raising chickens, farming millet, etc.
42% purchased an insecticide impregnated bed net to prevent malaria.

How much would it cost?