Targeting poor women as the best way to reach poor children.
- Develop credit programs for poor women with effective,
informal lending practices including small, short-term loans
increasing gradually in size; quick, simple, application; and
management of nonpayment risk with group guarantee,
savings and possibility of repeat loans.
- Provide services for the poor where they are -- In their
communities and with economic activities they know -- but
improve productivity, profitability and working conditions.
- Improve women's status by organizing women's support
groups outside the home.
- Help women fit their economic activities flexibly into roles of
parenting and other household responsibilities.
- Know and build on what works. The ability to grow and
replicate depends on clear, well-defined and comprehensive
models.
- Balance community participation with technical and financial
soundness by being sure that borrowers are able to absorb
credit funds for purposes intended, have the capacity and --
discipline to repay and save and the skills and responsibility to
manage well.
- Strive for financial sustainability. For programs this is done
by increasing scale to spread costs among many, charging
fees, and being rigorous about recovering and rotating assets.
- Avoid causing a significant increase in the unpaid workload of
children, school dropout, and a decrease in time for play and
rest.
- Offer adolescents economic education and starter systems for
livelihood.
- Integrate financil services with other benefits such as literacy,
health education, sanitation and environmental conservation,
etc. as long as the amount of cost of the other services are
controlled to be largely cost recoverable.
- Monitor and verify impact. For poverty lending and other
income projects, confirm that income is increasing and a
portion of it Is distributed within households in ways that
benefit children.
- Source:
- Credit Lines. Plan International. June 1995. Number Two.
Hari Srinivas - hsrinivas@gdrc.org
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