As a means of fighting poverty, the support of microfinance institutions has gained major significance in development aid. However, the widespread expectation that these institutions would quickly become self-sustaining has so far only rarely been fulfilled.
This applies in particular to multi-tier savings and credit cooperatives, whose way of functioning is examined in the present study using innovative organisation- and cost-analysis instruments. The analysis reveals the dominance of the upper institutional levels, which attempt to position themselves as intermediaries for public development aid and as a result generate extremely inefficient operations, instead of providing efficient support services for the lower level institutions.
To enable multi-tier savings and credit cooperatives to develop their full potential, radical reforms and a change of attitude on the part of the cooperative managers and international donors are needed.
Marcel Gounot
Africa Based Cooperatives Countries Credit Developing Efficiency Empirical Gounot Multi Research Savings Study Tier West