This 6 page breif highlights GRAD's experiences with helping families accees formal financing from Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs) in...
Microfinance
CARE's Village Savings & Loan Associations
In 1991, CARE harnessed the ancient practice of group saving when it launched the world's first Village Savings and Loan Association in Niger
Measuring Our Impact
Microfinance interventions increase the likelihood that a woman will start a business, and the business will generate better income.
CARE's Pathways Program Empowers Women in Malawi
Watch Anastazia Saka and Vicknes Chimbonga, two women members of the Village Savings and Loan groups in Malawi, share their stories about how participating in savings groups is changing their lives.
Measuring Our Impact
Women microfinance participants increase their influence on decisions about household, food and education decisions.
Expanding Economic Opportunity
The last frontier in the provision of microfinance to the world’s poorest people has been the remote villages and teeming slums of Africa. Traditional banking has not penetrated most of Africa, and microfinance in Africa has only reached a fraction of those who need it.
But in 1991 in a poor village in southern Niger, CARE discovered a way to harness the ancient practice of group savings and create a sustainable system of home-grown microfinance. In the years since then, we have helped establish more than 150,000 groups in 26 African countries, serving nearly 3.8 million members.
STEAL THESE STATS
Share the facts about microfinance.
Steal These StatsMore than 2.5 billion people don’t have bank accounts. #stealthesestats w/@CARE
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Steal These StatsIn Sub-Saharan #Africa, 76% of adults don’t have bank accounts. #stealthesestats w/@CARE
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Steal These Stats1/2 of people in Sub-Saharan #Africa have saved $$ with the help of their community #stealthesestats w/@CARE
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Steal These StatsIn #Kenya, CARE has helped 400 savings groups save more than $120,000. #stealthesestats w/@CARE
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Our Programs
CARE Calls for Solution to Financial Exclusion
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Microfinance Movement Tackles Poverty, Empowers Women
Make the Connection!
Learn about our work helping the poor access markets
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Donate Now
$25 can provide a village savings and loan group with a lock box, ledger and other start-up supplies to help them save and manage loans.
Learn More
Find out how we’re connecting the world’s poorest people to the global economy.
GRAD Program Success Stories
This USAID-funded GRAD Program run by CARE Ethiopia shows that giving someone power is the best way to break the cycle of poverty.
Take Action
Tell Congress to help expand economic opportunities for women around the world.
RESOURCES
This 2 page brief highlights the experience of the GRAD program working to get households in rural Ethiopia who have outstanding loans...
Want to get to empower women?
This two page brief highlights learning from the USAID-funded GRAD programs experiences with Loan Guarantee funds to get financial...
Through the Livelihoods and Food Security Technical Assistance II (LIFT II) Project, CARE works to expand access to economic...
“Within Reach: How banks can grow profitably by being more inclusive”
This 16 page evaluation showcases the final results of the groundbreaking program designed and implemented by CARE Ethiopia and...
This 88 page manual describes CARE's work in Rwanda on engaging men as allies in women's economic empowerment.
Women are engaged to be sellers and distributors of clean cook stoves and solar lanterns/lamps in an project called “wPOWER.”
Exploring Gender Dynamics of CARE Rwanda’s Village Savings and Loan Programming
Financial Linkages: Bridging the Formal and Informal Sectors
A Guide to Girls’ Economic and Social Empowerment Through a Solidarity Group Savings and Loan Platform
By Bill Clinton
The Integration of Social Analysis and Action into SAFI
This review focuses on the potential for the savings-led microfinance (MF) movement in sub-Saharan Africa to close an important gap in...
Securing capital to start a business or accruing savings is a near impossible task for millions of people in the developing world.
Our plan is called PATHWAY TO EMPOWERMENT because it’s a journey forward, together.
“Bringing Financial Services to Africa’s Poor” focuses on microfinance, a tool that’s been proven effective against poverty in the...
When poor people have access to financial services – secure savings, credit, insurance and other products – they can lift themselves out...
The importance of expanding access to financial services for the world’s poorest people is increasingly recognized.
CARE’s programs in Economic Development work to improve the economic security and income opportunities of the poor.
Sustainable Economic Development programs are part of CARE Haiti's Relief to Reconstruction strategy.