Browse by Theme: Financial Inclusion

Women on the Move (WOM) is a CARE regional strategy to mobilize existing savings groups (previously referred to as Village Savings & Loan Associations, or VSLA) in West Africa to serve as a platform for women and girls to assert their rights. These savings groups have been a foundational CARE approach to women’s economic justice. This report looks at the evolution of WOM from 2016 to 2021 and how Women's Collective Voice has become a powerful, impactful tool to drive gender equality in West Africa.

COVID-19 has become an unprecedented and unpredictable global crisis. It is “a defining moment in human history”.  COVID-19 has affected everyone, but not equally so. The pandemic is exploiting and exposing deep structural inequalities in economies, health care systems, and societies around the world, with devastating and disproportionate effects on the most vulnerable people, particularly those who live in development and humanitarian settings. Single mothers working in garment factories have lost their jobs and households’ only income, while the pandemic is exacerbating other families’ food insecurity. For those living in areas where conflict has destroyed healthcare facilities, COVID-19 poses a uniquely terrible and acute danger.

COVID-19 has become an unprecedented and unpredictable global crisis. It has affected everyone, but not equally so. The pandemic is exploiting and exposing deep structural inequalities in economies, health care systems, and societies around the world, with devastating and disproportionate effects on the most vulnerable people, particularly those who live in development and humanitarian settings. Single mothers working in garment factories have lost their jobs and households’ only income,  while the pandemic is exacerbating other families’ food insecurity. For those living in areas where conflict has destroyed healthcare facilities, COVID-19 poses a uniquely terrible and acute danger.

This paper provides findings and recommendations about how Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) can be a platform to challenge patriarchal structures that discriminate against and normalise violence against women and girls.

When women are able to come together in safe spaces, they can use their collective power and voice to bring about change for a more equitable world. Women on the Move (WOM) is a CARE regional strategy launched in 2016 that mobilises savings groups in West Africa, so that women and girls can assert their basic rights. This report assesses CARE’s progress on this Impact Growth Strategy to date and shares success stories and challenges going forward.

CARE has been working with Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) since we first launched the model in Niger in 1991. Over the years, VSLAs have reached more 7.6 million members, 81% of them women. The economic impacts of the VSLA groups are well documented. Less formally documented is the impact that VSLAs have on women themselves and on the social fabric of their communities.

This report, based on research into CARE humanitarian interventions in Niger, analyses whether community-led savings groups and income-generation activities can represent a way not only to respond to crises, but also to increase women’s economic empowerment, even in highly fluid contexts.