07ne-5065 Up scaling of financial services to protect the poor
| budget |
€ 190.147,93 |
status |
execution |
| start date |
01-01-2008 |
date end |
31-12-2009 |
| location |
|
country |
nepal |
| financer |
Agriterra |
| executor |
Nepal Federation of Savings and Credit Cooperative Unions |
intervention level |
national |
| Programmes |
| work area 08: Banking and Credit sector (including Insurance) | IFAP 08: Ensure secure access to resources | |
| description |
NEFSCUN is an autonomous national organization registered under the Cooperative Act. In 1998 NEFSCUN obtained a regular membership of the Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Unions (ACCU). It is owned by its members and respects international credit union principles. Presently there are approximately 1500 savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOS) (...more...) |
| description |
NEFSCUN is an autonomous national organization registered under the Cooperative Act. In 1998 NEFSCUN obtained a regular membership of the Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Unions (ACCU). It is owned by its members and respects international credit union principles. Presently there are approximately 1500 savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOS) registered in Nepal of which 402 credit cooperatives of them affiliated with NEFSCUN. These are 402 credit cooperatives are representing 60,000 members belonging to NEFSCUN.
The 2008-2009 proposal to Agriterra aims to consolidate the Micro finance activities, Business Development Support activities for SACCOS members, strengthen SACCOS and increasing access for women and economic development of women. Additional the project aims to consolidate the NEFSCUN Mutual Aid Program, becoming a key service to members of SACCOS. (...less...) |
| results & observations |
Mutual Aid Service
NEFSCUN Mutual aid Program (N-MAP) operates in thirteen participating SACCOS from January 1, 2005. NEFSCUN together with the technical support of MIAN professionals developed the revised death risk product with double accidental death benefit. This product was introduced from the January 1, 2007 among the five SACCOS.
In 2007, (...more...) |
| final results & observations |
Mutual Aid Service
NEFSCUN Mutual aid Program (N-MAP) operates in thirteen participating SACCOS from January 1, 2005. NEFSCUN together with the technical support of MIAN professionals developed the revised death risk product with double accidental death benefit. This product was introduced from the January 1, 2007 among the five SACCOS.
In 2007, a new mixed product called Cooperative Security Policy (CSP) was developed and starting in October 17, 2008. At the end of 2009 59 SACCOS have signed Memorandum of Cooperation and 30 SACCOS started selling policies. SACCOS can provide two insurance types products to their members (1) Pure death risk cover and the (2) Cooperative Security Policy (CSP). A total of 909 CSP policies and 1200 Pure death risk policies were sold at the end of 2009, in line with the target. 3125 (45% women) were trained on Mutual Aid.
Micro Finance and Micro Enterprise Development
Micro finance and Micro Enterprise Development project for women in the Central, Western and Mid-Western Regions of Nepal is in operation since June 2006. Main objective is to provide access to the production credit to the rural women, who were excluded from the available formal financial system.
With the past experience of implementation of the program in 2006, 2007 and 2008 both NEFSCUN and the SACCOS of other districts were ready to replicate the program in other districts of Nepal. There was a big demand from rural women for the micro finance services from other member SACCOS. With this realization, NEFSCUN has been running the service making use of CUMI methodology in 18 District in 140 SACCOS in 2009 reaching out to 39.820 women members in 2009, with an average savings of about € 55.
WECUMI: Strengthening Business Development Service
This service was in operation since August 2001 with special focus on supporting the rural female entrepreneurs in identifying and support in starting income generating activities and marketing the products as a way to overcome their poverty. Business Development Centre worked with thirty SACCOS and promotes sales of products. BDC operated a small outlet/shop in the field office to sell and showed the products made by SACCOS members. This service was not successful and at the end of 2008 NEFSCUN decided to stop the outlet/sales activities and focus only on business development support services, especially focusing on marketing, establishing market linkages and facilitating skill development support.
Opinion Project officer:
NEFSCUN has made a good progress during 2009. The Mutual Aid Programme is progressing according to the expectations and 59 SACCOS have signed the Memorandum of Cooperation. Main challenge will be to scale up the sales of policies in the coming years. Main strategy will be to have more orientation workshops and train capable persons in SACCOS on Mutual Insurance Programme to better prompte the concept in the field. Concerning Business Development Centre/Services it is positive that NESFCUN has taken some firm decision like stopping the sales outlet and focussing on limited service provision only. NEFSCUN acknowledges that it will be very difficult to come up with good quality products and there is heavy competition from China for the type of products being made by women. A business minded approach is lacking. It is not a core business of NEFSCUN to provide this kind of support to members and they should rather focus on their core competence: facilitating access to (micro) credit for resource poor women as CUMI is doing. CUMI programme is now really scaling up with a good outreach to resource poor women.
(...less...) |
| specialisms |
| Banking and credit sector (incl. insurance) | Gender | |
PROPOSAL
| Agri-agency | Own contribution executor | Other parties | Total requested budget |
|---|
| Agriterra | NEFSCUN | | |
| € 0,00 + € 0,00 | € 0,00 | € 0,00 | € 0,00 |
NEFSCUN offers a diverse number of services to it's members financial services; Interlending, financial intermediary, NEFSCUN Mutual Aid, Money Transfer and non-financial services; e.g. Advocacy and Networking, Training and education, CU Benchmarking, Software, Business development support, Micro Finance program and several other, like consultancy services.
The 2008-2009 proposal to Agriterra aims to consolidate the Micro finance activities, Business Development Support activities for SACCOS members, strengthen SACCOS and increasing access for women and economic development of women. Additional the project aims to consolidate the NEFSCUN Mutual Aid Program, becoming a key service to members of SACCOS.
Purpose of the project: To offer micro-mutual insurance products and services to the members of SACCOS through NEFSCUN on value added and sustainable basis.
At this moment there are a little over 526 SACCOS member of NEFSCUN, the total amount of individual members is 175,000 (approximately).
The project comprises three major components:
1. Strengthening and consolidation of NEFSCUN Mutual Aid Program (MAP)
2. Micro Finance and micro Enterprise development project for women
3. WECUMI in Chitwan & Strengthening Business development Services to SACCOS members.
Ad 1 and 2) project background and rationale: project context, target group, social and economic aspects, main commodities and markets, main stakeholders
The proposed project comprises three different sub projects with different targetgroups.
1. Mutual Aid Programme is a continuation of the in 2007 started programme in which the revised death risk product with double accidental death benefit has been tested in cuurently 8 SACCOS are participating.
NEFSCUN intends to a. expand the outreach to another 22 SACCOS in 2008; b. develop a combined mixed product to be tested by the end of 2008 and c. improvement in internal administration (staff acpacity building). In this project about 5000 SACCO member will betrained (of which 40% women).
2. Micro finance and micro enterprise developemnt for women: this activity started in 2006. At present 3000 women participate in 2 districts. There is a high demand among women for micro credit, so NEFSCUN intents to expand to 6 more districts in different regions of Nepal. Activities will include: training and education,exposure visits and M&E. It is expected that 6000 new female members enter SACCOs; saving will accumulate to about € 40.000.
3. WECUMI in Chitwan (Women Empowerment and Credit Union Micro Finance)
This programme is running since 2001 with the objective to support the rural entrepreneur in creation of Income Generating Activities. A Business Development Centre (BDC) or outlet has been set up in order to provide business services to SACCOs members in Chitwan.
It is the objective to develop de BDC as a self sustained service provider for SACCO members in addition to the current micro finnacial services delivered by SACCOs. Focus will be on few succesful quality products; business focus (aim: 25% self financing of operation costs in 2008, 50% in 2009). Participants will be 100 in 2008 and 200 in 2009, of which 80% women.
(3) tentative budget and funding, sources of funding…
2008
Agriterra: € 56.410 (80%)
NEFSCUN: € 14.293
TOTAL: € 70.703
2009:
Agriterra: € 50.606 (72%)
NEFSCUN: € 19.530
TOTAL: €70.136
(4) monitoring and evaluation: measurable indicators, sources of data collection…
NEFSCUN has prepared a good logframe which will be used for M&E purposes. Two MIAN and one MIAN/AGriterra mission have bene requested for.
(5) on sustainability and cost efficiency:
After this 2 years NEFSCUN will not yet be financially self sustainable but its dependency upon Agriterra is slowly reducing. Increased membership will result in higher income. NEFSCUN is planning to develop business plans for MAP and WECUMI project. |
GOALS
