The role of informal microfinance institutions in saving

savings and credit cooperatives that relied on their values of justice and self-help.
Desjardins wanted to fight the usury that victimized the common people. The savings
accumulated in the cases would make it possible to meet the credit needs of sectors of
the population ignored by the traditional banks or exploited by the practices of loan
sharks. Democratic authority and open-ended capital was among the principles of
Desjardins.
However, one can claim that African SACCOs are purely and simply reproductions of
European or North American models. In fact, the SACCOs experiences, at least for the
most part, are still built on traditional Africans models. A dynamic group or association
preceded the set up of a SACCOs, in most cases.
1.1.9: EMMERGENCE OF MODERN COOPERATION IN AFRICAN
COUNTRIES:
The swarm of European models of modern cooperation in African countries occurred in two
historical phases with very different characteristics:
• A first colonial stage in which the model was imported;
• A second post-colonial phase of adaptation or Africanization of the cooperative model.
In the colonial phase, until the major period of decolonization of Francophone African in the
early 1960s, the cooperative formula was especially implanted as such by European colonials.
Consumer cooperatives and agricultural cooperatives were thus created in certain areas of
colonization.
Dominique Gentile and Yes Fournier, in this book entitled Les pay sans peuventils devenir
banquiers? [“Can peasants Become Bankers?” (Editions Syros) said: “Indigenous provident
societies (SIP) were tried in Senegal starting in 1907 before being governed by a decree (1910)
and extended to all the colonies with many variations: African provident societies (SAP) in
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