Sa-Dhan Newsletter Volume 4 Issue 2

Community Based Organisations

Strengthening Access to Financial Services for the Poor - Role of

Community-based Organizations: A Workshop Report

-Sa-Dhan In-House Research Team

This paper is a report on the national workshop on "Strengthening Access to Financial Services for the Poor - Role of

Community-based Organizations" organised by Sa-Dhan as a part and process of its national study on federations of SHGs.

Sa-Dhan shared the preliminary findings of its study with stakeholders and experts at the one-day workshop in New Delhi

on December 3, 2002.

T

mainstream financial institutions and government institutions.

he emergence of self-help groups (SHGs) around rotating

Eight of the 18 participants were senior officials from the

mutual savings and credit in the 1980s has led hundreds

government (Central and State), and 10 from mainstream

of NGOs to experiment with innovative ways to take development

financial institutions. There were eight support agencies or

forward to community-based organizations in the form of

donors, seven other training and support institutions and

SHG clusters or federations. This development has in turn

eight consultants. Another five representatives were from

brought to the forefront issues critical to the health and

three community-based organizations.  Seven study team

functioning of these institutions. Therefore, a need was felt

members, three Advisory Committee members and three from

by practitioners involved in the promotion of SHG clusters

the writing team also attended the workshop.

and federations to look into the issues. Hence the study was

undertaken with a view to understanding these issues so that

The workshop started with opening remarks on the 'Role of

SHG federations are properly guided to enable them to be

Micro-finance in the Macro Economy of India' by Asha

sustainable in the long run and provide future growth

Swarup, Jt. Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, GOI.

strategy. Keeping these ends in mind, the objective of the

She said: "Micro-finance and micro finance institutions (MFI)

study was to comprehensively and critically understand issues

have reached a take off stage in India. In 1996, the RBI

effecting the SHG federations, identify gaps and their best

provided impetus to micro-finance by including it in priority

practices. The study, co-ordinated by Sa-Dhan, was conducted

sector lending for banks. In the same year, the government

by a team of researchers. Its members included Chaitanya,

of India, recognizing that the SHG approach was one of the

DST, Pradan, RGVN, Outreach, FWWB and Sharmik Bharti.

best ways of reaching the poor in the rural areas, formulated

The team visited 27 SHG federations across the country

the Swarn Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna (SGSY), around the

There were 90 registered participants at the workshop. Thirty-

self-help concept. SGSY focus is the BPL families, which is

seven from various grassroots organisations, 18 were non

different from the focus of NABARD-SHG linkage programme

Sa-Dhan members while 19 others were Sa-Dhan members.

that does not necessarily go to BPL families. She adds,

Besides the practitioners, there were 18 representatives from

"Whether families have been correctly identified under the

Mr. Vinod Jain (Consultant), Mr. Mathew Titus (Executive Director, Sa-Dhan), Mrs. Asha Swarup (Jt. Secretary, MRD, GOI),

Mrs. Shashi Rajagopalan (Consultant) & Mr. V. K. Chopra (Executive Director OBC & Convenor of the Informer Group on Funding

Issues set up by RBI) At the National Workshop on Strengthening Access to Financial Services for the Poor

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