POWER Africa, CARE’s Promoting Economic Opportunities for Women’s Empowerment in Rural Africa Project, is a $13 million, four-year project, funded by the MasterCard Foundation which aims to increase financial inclusion in Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia and Rwanda through the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) approach, financial education, and linking mature groups to formal financial institutions, while also creating a platform for sharing lessons learned within and between the four target countries. Three years into the project, in Burundi there are 102,098 VSLA members in 4,432 groups.
This study, using 18 trained enumerators in six groups, carried out 290 1:1 interviews with young women in VSLAs, examining their lives before VSLAs and now. Also, 130 non-VSLA members were interviewed as a control. Additional evidence was gathered from several VSLA and non-VSLA focus groups. [42 pages]