You Cannot Save Alone - Financial and Social Mobilization in Savings and Credit Groups

Abstract

Savings and credit groups are becoming increasingly popular, both as a cost-efficient alternative to mainstream microfinance and as a mean to mobilize people around individual and common challenges. Whether donors should promote and support Self Help Microfinance Groups that confine themselves to financial intermediation only - the specialist, or minimalist approach - or if they should support those pursuing a more integrated approach and incorporate a broader set of activities, is increasingly being debated. The study proposes a framework to better analyze and understand the different group-models, their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, the study outlines how social and financial mobilisation in savings and credit groups are interlinked and reinforce each other. The claim is that social mobilisation in the form of change in attitude and knowledge at the individual level is needed to make financial operations effective. At the same time financial mobilisation is needed to enable social mobilisation; with the practice of financial mobilisation people can become socially mobilised.

Keywords: microfinance, social mobilization, savings and credit groups, self help groups

JEL Classification: O10, P46, R51, Z00