Our money, our rights: - Consumers International

In Ethiopia it has evolved from individual revolving credit used by women, to a more
collective system for funding water facilities through the Amhara Credit & Savings
Institute 19 . The Moroccan government has legislated to enable micro-credit to be
used for the development of electricity and drinking water supply, as well as
housing for poor households 20 . Micro-credit can be used to finance first time
connections and may extend from the individual to the collective, so that families
invest in their own communal development.
A distinctive feature of Africa, particularly rural areas, is that the distinction between
the consumer and producer is more blurred. Many of the activities supported by
micro-loans for small businesses (such as baking, cloth dyeing, market gardening)
often take place either in, or in close proximity to the home. In Kenya 80% of micro-
enterprises are owned by women 21 . Under those circumstances there are likely to
be spin offs that benefit families as consumers as well as producers.
But credit is not the only financial service.
At a World Bank conference in 2000, it was reported that ‘there is a larger market
for savings products than for credit products as has been demonstrated repeatedly
by micro-finance organisations, which consistently report loan/deposit ratios of less
than 50% 22 .’ Similarly, the above mentioned DFID/UNDP study points out that
financial services providers need to diversify. Savings and risk pooling (insurance)
are also essential services that are comprehensible to a wide range of consumers
and yet under-provided. The Agence Francaise de developpement has also
reported an evolution from micro-credit to micro-finance in Africa, widening in scope
to include insurance and money transfer in addition to the now traditional micro-
loans 23 .
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