GROTH POLE 

 

The Program is entitled “Promoting Women’s Economic and Social Empowerment through Increased Access to Finance in Lilongwe, Thyolo, Mulanje, Mchinji, Salima, Rumphi, Mzimbi, Chikwawa, and Nsanje Districts”. The program implementation period is October 2023 to September 2025. WOLREC is supporting existing VLSAs to increase the number of women who are able to access credit to engage in meaningful agri-business ventures. The VSLA model is a savings-based approach that has proven that it can fill the gap between the needs of the poor for financial services and the ability and willingness of banks and Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) to provide these services. It provides sustainable and profitable savings, insurance, and credit services to people who live in places where banks and MFIs do not have a presence, such as rural areas and urban slums However, WOLREC’s experience has shown that the money realized from savings are frequently not significant enough to enable women to conduct businesses capable of generating high returns. This project therefore provides capital injections to women’s VSLAs so that they are able to engage in larger businesses with higher returns. WOLREC has a total of 2,400 women’s groups composed of 25 members each which translates to 60,000 capital injection loan recipients, with each individual receiving MWK40,000.00 as an average capital injection loan amount per loan cycle. In addition, the project assists women to access simple technologies which reduces the time they take to manage their productivity. WOLREC also facilitates the establishment of women’s producer groups that assists them to collectively negotiate prices as they access markets. In addition, the project builds the capacity of women in critical areas such as financial literacy, business management, family budgeting models and the Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS). The GALS approach has proven to be a powerful tool to address the household decision making gap between men and women, ultimately reducing gender-based gaps in access to and control over productive resources and household decision-making GALS supports reducing women’s vulnerability. WOLREC also works on linking the groups with financial institutions. All the groups working with WOLREC are connected to NBS through opening of a savings account. The opening of the savings bank account brings the women’s groups into the formal financial system; over time, as they build a relationship with formal financial institutions, they will potentially be able to access financing directly from banks.

The project objectives are as follows:

• To empower project recipients in income generation skills.

• To facilitate increased access to financial resources and services by farmers.

• To increase the capacity of recipients through social empowerment trainings.

• To facilitate linkage of capital injection groups to formal financial institutions.