We were off to a bright and rosy start, but problems started almost immediately. The main problem was the secretary — only one woman read and write.

My first project started a month or so after I arrived in my village, Borguindé. As I slowly got used to hearing and speaking the local language, Fulfuldé, I started talking to women in the village about starting savings and credit groups to start a small business.

The principle behind these groups is fairly simple. Every week, all the women get together and each contributes a small sum of money. There are penalties for paying one’s share late.

Sustaining development

When they’ve saved enough, one of the women can borrow some money and use it to start up her cake-making business. After a month or two, she pays it back with interest.

Meanwhile, another woman can borrow, too. After a while, the women can build up a fairly substantial sum of money — and either redistribute it to members or start taking out bigger loans.

Getting off the ground

The most important part is to keep the group small, so the women know and trust each other.

The groups did help the women save up money for things they couldn’t afford every day, by forcing them to put aside a little money each week.

For a while, the women listened, nodding approval at the idea — and did nothing.

Then one evening, I told one of my aunts, Samare, about the groups. She, an energetic woman, promptly found eleven other women who were interested. The very next day, we were setting up a first meeting.

I brought along my friend Mousa as a translator. After all, I had not been there for long, and my Fulfuldé was a little shaky when it came to trying to explain things like “interest rates” and “penalties.”

An enthusiastic community

But the women were excited, even a little over-enthusiastic — they had already decided to save up 100 African francs (about 20 U.S. cents) each a week, and they all even had their first week’s contribution.

I told them that they should all think about it for a week, so they could all be sure that this is what they really wanted. They nodded and said these were wise words, but still all gave their share to the treasurer and started discussing who would get to borrow first.

Contagious system

Days later, my aunt came to me and said that more women were interested in joining, and could I help them start their own groups? Naturally, I said yes — and, with Mousa in tow, headed to the next meeting.

The lack of meetings meant any woman could borrow, so long as she got to the treasurer first.

I was excited that so many women were interested in the groups. However, at the same time, I was a little wary of how these groups were getting started.

As I said, Samare is very energetic, sometimes to the point of being rather pushy. All the groups met in her courtyard, and as I tried to explain how things could work, she would walk to and fro, feeding the goats or doing her laundry, and frequently interjecting her own advice — “Our group saves up 100 African francs a week. Our group has an eight-week delay before you have to pay your loan back.”

Oddly similar plans

Meanwhile, I would repeatedly tell her to be quiet and let the women decide how they wanted to organize their group themselves. Usually she would laugh and occasionally even quiet down for a moment — before asserting her presence again.

The result of all this was that eventually we had a total of four women’s groups, all with suspiciously similar rules. All would save 100 African francs a week, all would have a 25 African francs late fee. The only difference, in the end, was in the reprieve the women had before repayment — respectively eight weeks, two months, ten weeks and one month.

Keeping on the books

We were off to a bright and rosy start, but problems started almost immediately. The main one was the problem of the secretary — only one woman in one group could read and write.

Few of the women had used the money they had borrowed for the purposes they had initially outlined.

So I explained to her how to set up and maintain a notebook, to record who didn’t show up one week, who had borrowed and so on. Unfortunately, two weeks later, this woman left Borguindé to go live in nearby Djibo during the dry season, and so she was no longer on hand to keep up the notebook. Thus, all four groups were left without a secretary.

Somewhat reluctantly, I took on the job while looking around for someone who could step in for me. In the meantime, I became aware that while the women were generally very good about paying each week, they rarely paid on time.

No need to meet

In fact, they soon scrapped the idea of a regular meeting altogether. Each week, the women would go by the treasurer’s house, at any time between sunrise and sunset, and drop off her 100 African francs.

They quietly ignored the late fee, although they had all been very enthusiastic about it at first, because of the incentive it gave to pay on time.

Promise and problems

In only one instance was it actually used in one of the groups, a woman simply stopped paying her fee for eight weeks, so I assumed that she was dropping out of the group. Then she showed up one day with 1000 African francs — eight weeks’ worth of weekly fees with the penalties for all of the weeks. I was so proud that I almost cried.

While the women were generally very good about paying each week, they rarely paid on time.

The problem with the lack of regular meetings became apparent when the women started to accumulate enough money to borrow. The treasurer would inform me that Fantare or Habata had borrowed money. I would record that fact, but then Annatu would come and complain that she had wanted to borrow money.

The lack of meetings meant any woman could borrow, so long as she got to the treasurer first. Moreover, the initial idea had been that the women would all have to approve a loan, so a woman couldn’t borrow money for just anything.

Unusual reasons for loans

Samare herself, when she borrowed her share, used it to buy herself a new outfit to wear to the Women’s Fair in Djibo. So much for starting small businesses!

They did, however, agree on all the women borrowing the same amount of money. In Samare’s group, for example, each woman would borrow 3,000 African francs, with the idea of reimbursing it with a 10% interest rate.

Where are all the baked goods?

This came in very handy when I told the first women who had borrowed that they had to reimburse.

They quietly ignored the late fee, although they had all been very enthusiastic about it at first because of the incentive it gave to pay on time.

They did in fact hold a general meeting, at which they decided not to pay back what they had borrowed at all, but just to pay back the interest.

This of course went against their own initial rules, but since they all agreed on this, and they had all been borrowing the same sum, it was seen as a fair decision — and nobody would lose by it.

I was a little disappointed by the changes and by the fact that few of the women had used the money they had borrowed for the purposes they had initially outlined.

A kind of success

However, the groups did help the women save up money for things they couldn’t afford every day, by forcing them to put aside a little money each week.

In that sense, I suppose the groups were successful. In a few weeks’ time, most of the groups will have cycled through — once — so that everyone will have borrowed the same amount of money.

Speeding up the cycle

At that time, I am going to encourage the women to switch the format of the group, so instead of waiting a

The most important part is to keep the group small, so the women know and trust each other.

few weeks until a member can borrow, they all pool their resources each week and one woman takes that week’s savings for herself.

There’s no interest involved, the group can cycle through all its members a lot faster, and it better suits the purposes for which the women have been using their money.