POWER Africa, CARE’s Promoting Economic Opportunities for Women’s Empowerment in Rural Africa Project, is a USD $13 million, 4-year project, funded by the MasterCard Foundation which aims to increase financial inclusion in Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia and Rwanda through the VSLA approach, while also creating a platform for sharing lessons learned within and between the four target countries.

Three years into the project there are 141,294 VSLA members in 6,433 groups.

This panel study, using 17 trained enumerators in six groups according to zones, carried out 360 1:1 interviews with VSLA members, examining their lives before VSLAs and now. Also interviewed as a control were 204 non-VSLA members. Additional evidence was gathered from a number of VSLA and non-VSLA focus groups. [26 pages]