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It is believed that provisions of financial services address the issue of gender disparity more adequately. A woman in the society we live is still perceived in a more traditional role in the economy (invisible contribution i.e. underpaid and unpaid) and is assumed unable to be economically productive. Field learning shows that women borrowers tend to be more credit worthy as they generally have a high sense of responsibility. Moreover, an increase in woman income benefits the household to a greater extend as oppose to a commensurate increase in a man’s income. SRSP while maintaining a focus on the rural women has also taken an urban initiative with the intention to address the income poverty of urban women that prevails in the province. Under its NevaySaher Microfinance Project, SRSP has initially opened up a branch in the centre of Peshawar City (location: Assiya Gate), which provides small loans, mostly too economically active working poor women. The urban operations like rural are also remained very promising. An enormous demand for credit has been witnessed during the past 6 months. The project has a well-defined recruitment policy and staff career development plan. Project staff has been found genuinely motivated, cost sensitive and extremely confident to stand out the best in terms of performance. Plans are underway to open up a third branch shortly which will have an exclusive focus on providing financial assistance for the development of micro-enterprise in the area.
Under the SRSP Microfinance program are advanced against a potential borrower saving capacity. It was evident from the pre-program surveys that majority of the women had a saving capacity ranges from Rs. 500/- to Rs. 1,000/- per month. Rotation of Savings & Credit Association (ROSCA) was identified a common system of accessing ‘chunk of money’ in case of any cash needs. However the systematic error with such arrangements were that these ‘chunk of money’ was not available to ALL savers when there was a need to quickly respond to an economic opportunity or had to cope up with a sudden income shock. Based one these finding the microfinance facility is designed in a manner, which could fill these gaps on a sustainable basis.
The program deliberately follows a group lending approach, which in light of our experience is more effective in reaching women prospective borrowers than employing an individual lending credit technology. This is because, women are more apt to participate in collective activities than men are, and many women prefer the security and non-financial benefits that the credit group provides. Moreover, women tend to have small businesses, mostly home-based, operating part-time and therefore the minimum loan sizes for some individual loans may be above their needs. Group mechanism, we have experienced, also reduces the risks and costs associated with providing small loans to low-income clients. |
Microfinance Program Structure
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