Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC): A Basis for Integral Human Development (IHD)

This paper provides an overview of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Integrated Human Development (IHD) program through Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC). The IHD program enables people to expand their choices to improve their lives, meet their basic human needs, free themselves of oppression and realize their full human potential. The SILC approach helps increase low household income by providing people, primarily women, with income generating opportunities through access to self-managed savings-led financial services. SILC:

• Use members knowledge and experience to identify best practices which work in areas such as childrearing practices, agricultural practices and income-generation;
• Use their own savings to build up a self-managed savings, credit and social fund;
• Borrow from own pool of money, eliminating risk of default.

SILC lead to social and financial sustainability, understanding and building trust, village sensitization, group formation and inter-lending. They also motivate the community and local government to engage in development issues that go beyond monetary returns. CRS believes that there is now sufficient evidence of SILC effectiveness to warrant a massive scale-up to reach millions of poor people.