Today's Revolutionary Retrospective

Dear Reader - I hope you have been following and enjoying the Today’s Revolutionary series in the left sidebar of this page. Kim and I thought you might like to see the entire series, and have posted it here, all 94 of ‘em.

I enjoyed reviewing the series. It contains so many people I admire, and in many cases with wonderful quotations, many of the totally unexpected. For instance, this gem from Plato: One of the penalties for refusing to particpate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors! Or MC Escher: Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it’s in my basement… let me go upstairs and check. (Don’t worry - that’s not supposed to make sense!)

Click to read more ...

And Micah begat Phillip, and Phillip begat Salome...

For the last two days, I have had the pleasure of visiting CRS Savings and Internal Lending Communities – or SILC groups – in Eldoret Kenya. I have been eager to discover SILC, and I’m glad to have the chance to do that.

The most distinctive feature of CRS’s approach is the fee-for-service trainers, called Private Service Providers, or PSPs. They are trained to offer a menu of services to people in the community, beginning with SILC training, and moving on to Business Development Services, and possibly many other things, from agricultural training to solar lamp sales.

Click to read more ...

The Iquub: A ROSCA among Ethiopian Taxi Drivers

Part 2 of a two-part series on Ethiopian mutual aid associations. Click here to download the full paper from which these entries are drawn.

According to Yohannes, the motivation to start an iquub came from a desire to carry on with a tradition that came from “our father’s fathers and their fathers.” He and Girma were among the original founders of an iquub among Ethiopian taxi drivers that began 20 years ago (1993). Both Yohannes and Girma came to Boston on student visas around 1974, shortly after the Ethiopian revolution. While attending university both worked part time as taxi drivers.  After earning a degree in mechanical engineering, Yohannes worked as an engineer for seven years before going back to driving a taxi. When I asked him why he left his career as a mechanical engineer, he raised his hands and exclaimed, “For the independence, you see!”

Click to read more ...

The Iddir: A burial savings group for Ethiopian Taxi Drivers

Part 1 of a two-part series on Ethiopian mutual aid associations. Click here to download the full paper from which these entries are drawn.

For generations, communities in Ethiopia have managed their financial needs and life risks through informal mutual aid associations. The most prominent of these associations include the iddir, an emergency and funeral insurance group, and the iquub, a rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA). Within Ethiopia, these groups vary in structure, size, purpose, and procedures yet some common characteristics exist. In essence, the iddir is a type of insurance program run by a community or group to meet emergency situations, primarily funerals.

Click to read more ...

Trust made easy

Yesterday I had a delightful lunch with Jean Claude Rodríguez-Ferrera Massons of ACAF and Puddle, and Jose Quiñonez of the Mission Asset Fund, two wonderful people full of exciting ideas. What a pleasure - I knew them both a bit through the internet but had never met them in person. 

At one point, I asked Jean Claude how he dealt with loan approval in his on-line puddles. He replied, “Oh, there is no procedure. Loan approval is already done when you form the group. If you invite someone

Click to read more ...

Shoe wars

The Center For Financial Inclusion blog has a lively exchange reprising the debate about formal v informal financial services, at the Extreme Inclusion conference at the Fletcher School on 2-3 May.

First, Beth Rhyne makes her pro-bank pitch here, to which I added some acerbic dissing of Big Finance, which was apparently not sufficiently acerbic for John Gitau.

Then Jenny Aker argues eloquently for the informal side here, leaving the formalistas so devastated that they haven’t yet mustered a reply.

The reference to shoes? Sorry - You’ll just have to read the blog!

Now, THAT'S a banking procedure!

Thanks to Louise Smith who sent a link to the site of World Renew, an organization I had never heard of. Sorry, World Renew! The site has a great promotional video from Malawi. If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, scroll to about 1:05 minutes into it, where there is a very lively savings group meeting. I love the infectious energy, and the fact that the person who opens the box apparently has to keep dancing the entire time. Now, THAT’s a banking produre!

Andrew Oerke 1932-2013

I just heard from friends that my old boss Andy Oerke had died suddenly, at 81. Andy was the head of Partnership for Productivity (PfP), one of the pioneer NGOs in micro-credit. I’ve never known anyone quite like him. One short anecdote might give a sense of who he was:

In about 1984, I was working at the PfP home office in Washington DC. It was, to say the least, an informal office. We had casual Friday seven days a week. One day my wife came by for lunch, and brought my daughter Caitlin, then about two years old. We enjoyed a nice meal of leftover spaghetti, which Caity ate as a two-year-old should, spreading the food on her clothes, our clothes, and the floor. 

Click to read more ...

Table Banking

I just encountered the term “table banking”, which I’d never seen before. I couldn’t figure out what it meant from the context, so I googled it, and found this reference on the site of Grace Life Ministries, a Christian NGO in Eldoret Kenya: “In addition every member contributes towards the pool monthly. We employ TABLE-BANKING for accountability and fast transactions. Table-banking here means all the money transactions are done at table before the members.”

I like the associations of the term. “Putting your cards on the table” is an expression from card games that means “to tell someone honestly what you think or what you plan to do”. That sounds good! And, of course, tables are places around which families and friends meet to talk and eat together.  

Has anyone else heard this term? Do you practice Table Banking? Do you know where it came from?

It's the management, silly!

Here’s a simple observation that can make a big difference.

I’ve seen savings group programs of most of the big international NGOs. (You know who I mean.) They all have some good programs and some not so good programs. The approach - VSLs, SILCs, Saving for Changes, CBSGs - are not the determining factor in quality.

Nor is the region the determining factor: I’ve seen good programs living beside bad programs in the same country.

So what makes the difference? I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it is above all the

Click to read more ...