Pauline Diouf

“Our group is already active in the buying and selling of various products (i.e. purchasing local food products such as mangoes or salty dried fish directly from producers and selling them at retail prices from roadside stands – a traditional women’s occupation in Senegal). The loan will finance the business of selling local grains (millet) and seafoods, to be undertaken by the women following a rotation schedule of ten people per lending period (In other words, the loan will go into a group fund which will be lent to ten members to finance their individual enterprise activities for a fixed period of time, then lent in turn to the remaining ten members. Funds reimbursed to Kiva would be replaced by contributions from the group members’ profits). The fruit and vegetable market is not saturated in Foundiougne, which is a large city (near Mbam). This system of revolving credit permits us to better take advantage of investment opportunities, because it allows for the division of credit among our members, and thus a sharing of risks.

Loan objectives:

• Boost the income of the women in the group

• Start a fund for the eventual establishment of a collective vegetable garden

• Support the achievement of our members’ buying and selling objectives

Activities:

• Selling of seafood products and vegetables

• Operating street-side stalls that sell cooked meals and fresh produce

• Buying and selling of various local food products at market”

Original French :

“Le groupement est déjà actif sur la commercialisation de produits divers.
La prêt doit couvrir un projet de vente de céréales locales et de fruits de mer à l’intention des femmes suivant une rotation de 10 personnes par période de prêt. Le marché des fruits et légumes n’est pas saturé à Foundiougne qui est une grande ville. Le crédit revolving permet de mieux rentabiliser l’investissement dans la mesure où il favorise une division du crédit entre ses membres et un partage des risques.

Objectifs du Prêt :

- augmenter les revenus des femmes membres du groupement

- disposer d’un fond de départ pour l’aménagement ultérieur d’un potager collectif

- appuyer les bénéficiaires dans la réalisation de leurs objectifs d’achat et de vente

Activités :

- vente de produits halieutiques et de légumes

- restauration et vente

- petit commerce”

Background

Senegal is one of the world’s poorest countries, yet its solid democratic tradition and highly developed associational life distinguish it from other countries in its income group. Especially remarkable are Senegal’s networks of rotating savings and credit associations, known as tontines. Commonly organized by groups of twenty to thirty housewives who live in the same village, the tontines provide poor women throughout the country with small loans to finance modest income-generating activities. Repayment rates within these associations are excellent, because they are based on local reputation and personal trust between the members. However, their financial resources are limited to the contributions of their members, frequently subsistence farmers with very little disposable income. This has prevented the traditional tontines from meeting the demand for rural microenterprise loans and restricted their impact on the economic development of their communities. Senegal Ecovillage Microfinance (SEM) works with our partner organization CRESP to bridge this gap by linking traditional village credit associations with outside sources of finance.