To fill some of the gaps in knowledge about how financial services contribute to household resilience, a series of financial diaries and qualitative data were collected among 46 women in rural Burkina Faso. Results from the study revealed that the demand for financial services to anticipate and cope with shocks appears widely unmet.
The primary goal of this paper is to identify the characteristics of self-perceived resilience among a small sample of women in rural Burkina Faso. The findings from this paper provide unique insights into the set of factors, if reinforced by financial institutions and development practitioners, that are likely to strengthen household resilience.
This case study follows the experience of Reseau des Caisses Populaires du Burkina Faso (RCPB), a credit union network based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in designing a health savings product and health loan (which could be accessed only when a health savings account was in use and depleted of funds) that clients could use to address health costs.
For microfinance institutions (MFIs) with social missions, understanding changes in client well-being has become more important as MFIs are held to task to demonstrate both outreach to the poor and improvements in their lives.
This Spanish-language paper (Memoria sobre: Sistematización de Experiencias de Integración de Salud y Microfinanzas en el Perú) reports on the experiences, outcomes, and lessons learned during a five year project aimed at integrating financial services and health services across village banking groups in Peru.
This publication by the European Microfinance Platform analyzes a variety of macro- and micro-level factors that can impact the scalability and sustainability of youth integrated services. The work of two Ecuadorian credit union partners, Cooperativa San Jose and Cooperativa Cooprogreso, are highlighted to share their experiences of developing youth financial and nonfinancial services.