Deepening Outreach through Credit Unions: A Review of the WOCCU Ecuador Rural Savings and Credit with Education (CREER) Project (Research Brief)
This research brief presents findings of a World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) study to review the WOCCU Ecuador Rural Savings and Credit with Education (CREER) project. It also provides recommendations for replication of the project in other countries. The WOCCU CREER project introduced the savings and credit with education (SCWE) methodology to four mainstream credit unions in Ecuador. The SCWE methodology combines access to financial services with informal participatory education to reach poor, economically active women capable of engaging in microenterprise. It aimed to encourage women to graduate from the group savings and lending program, and become full, individual members of the credit unions. When the project closed in August 2005, the four credit unions were serving 12,633 members. While results exceeded expectations, WOCCU learned that the program would be too expensive for a credit union to implement without start up donor funding. The brief provides the following details of the CREER program:
- Outreach, growth, self-sufficiency expectations;
- Modifications that each credit union introduced;
- Program products, training and supervision;
- Education component;
- Challenges to project implementation.
