1. Smita Premchander and Simona Lanzioni Milan, September 2015
Gender and Microfinance Lessons from Sampark Pangea Project in Koppal, India
Smita Premchander and Simona Lanzioni
Milan, September 2015

2. Women are the Foundations of The Whole Microfinance Industry
The industry size in India:
There are 7.2 million women’s groups in India
More than 80 million women take loans in India, from banks and private microfinance organisations
Women save about 5 billion Euro in SHGs
Women take loans of about 10 billion Euro from banks and private microfinance institutions

3. The Pangea and Sampark Partnership: The
A ten year partnership
What is special about the partnership?
The industry makes profits from women
Our model empowers women
They make the savings, loans and profits
They make the decisions, they lead
Our role: build their capacities to run a microfinance organisation
A cooperative banking institution

4. A Women’s Self Help Group
A group of 10 to 20 women
They meet together
Once a week,
Once in two weeks, or
Once in a month
They save small amounts
of money
They pool in the money and lend to one another
They keep accounts
They share the profits and losses of the lending operation

5. Small Businesses Started

6. Dairying: An Important Income Generating Activity

7. Small Ruminants:
Appropriate for Koppal
Goat rearing

8. Enterprise: Brick making

9. Skill Training: Tailoring

10. Skill training: scrubber unit

11. Building SHGs into Women Cooperatives
Cooperative ( SHGs)
SHG
…………………….Members……………………..
Share capital contribution by each member for Cooperative
Administrative Committee
Micro credit Committee
Education Committee
Health
Committee
IGP C L U S T E R A F
Social Agenda prioritised alongside economic agenda

12. Steady Growth in Numbers (As on March 31, 2015)

13. Cooperative Banking Services

14. Capacity Building Open spaces to meet were needed
Games and innovative learning methods were devised

15. Group Cash Transactions
Whole- sale purchase of products needed regularly: Soap, cereals, lentils

16. Cooperative Board Meeting
Now using modern equipment and powerpoint programme

17. Leadership and Management Trainings

18. Member to Member Trainings

19. Financial Impacts Improved household consumption Health and education
Investment in agriculture, animals, small businesses
Land on lease for cultivation

20. Social and Empowerment Impacts
Social Impacts:
Supporting Education of Children
Social and Empowerment Impacts

21. Better Nutrition Higher expenditure on food
Increased purchase of on meat, eggs, butter, oil, milk and fruits
Sufficient quantity of food

22. Empowering Impacts Individual: Community level Increased knowledge
Increased confidence
Leadership in groups, cooperatives, village panchayats
Social support from peers
Reduced domestic violence
Community level
Stopped devadasi practice, child marriage
Removed liquor shops from villages

23. Social Development Services (March 2015)
Children supported for education
Government schemes accessed for villagers
Got roads and bus routes sanctioned

24. Political Empowerment
Moving liquor shops out of villages, Asking for roads, new bus routes

25. Empowering Microfinance
Women need ownership and control over resources
Sharing of care work with family and state
Women owning land, and power over community resources, political engagement
Invest in Women
The Sampark – Pangea project has provided inputs for organisation building, leadership, management, systems development, and social support. For real empowerment 7 to 10 years partnership on the ground is needed.

26. Thank You

27. Social Impacts: Children’s Education

28. Institutional imperatives
Financial Sustainability, Good Governance, Transparency, Collective Learning
Institutional imperatives

29. Gender and Microfinance
Women repay loans
Women use money productively
Women take as much as they can repay.
Women's groups and cooperatives provide social spaces for them to share knowledge, experiences and give each other mutual support.
HOw women's empowerment occurs:
--first take control of cash
=They begin to participate in household decisions
- They protest again violence
- Women educate their children, especially girls
- Devadasi women, with economic empowerment, stop dedicating their girls as devadasis.
And finally, we can say that women's own SHGs and cooperatives helps to keep the financial benefits with them, rather than give to an external organisation, and with this they get financial, economic and social empowerment.  Also political, as they become important at the community level.
I can give examples of all this from Koppal cooperatives.

30. Conclusions When extreme poor, give her grants, not loans
When remote, tribal and non monetised areas, give food in kind, not in cash
When in monetised areas where income opportunities exist, commercial microfinance can still be exploitative, like a moneylender.
The best options are “empowering microfinance” which provide venues for economic and social empowerment.

31. Efficiency and Sustainability of the Cooperatives (As on November 30, 2014)
Performance Indicators
Eshwara
Sadhana
Gavi-siddeshwara
Bhumika
Portfolio Quality
Gross Portfolio Outstanding
($. > 1 million)
400,000
230,000
220,000
On Time Repayment Rate (%) 99 98
100 82
Portfolio At Risk (PAR) - >30 Days (%) 1 2 18
Efficiency
Total Administrative Cost Ratio (%) 7 6 10
Operating Cost Ratio (OCR) (%) 19 20 15 23
Sustainability
Operational Self Sufficiency (OSS) (%)
139
125
115
121
Note: Analysis till March 2015 is available for 1st 3 coop in the excel file as the auditing not completed for Bhumika at the time of analysis

32. Why form Women’s Groups?
Women can introduce one another
They have trust among them
They take loans together from external agency
They promise to pay for their group member, if she cannot pay

33. Accelerated Recent Growth in Capital (As on March 31, 2015)

34. Loan Disbursed and its Repayment (As on March 31, 2015)

36. Collective empowerment and voice