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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Credits for the craftsmen! An example of public-private partnership for a better access to credit for the poorer
| Panel |
74. The Creativity of Practitioners for Development
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| Paper ID | 529 |
| Author(s) |
Boko, Joachim ; Houngbedji, Antoine
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| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
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| Abstract | The Peace Nobel Prize awarded to Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank, one of the biggest poor-oriented banks in the world, is a recognition of the role of micro credit in the political and social stability building in the poor country. This came to reinforce the role conferred to micro finance by many studies since the earlier 1980s. However, as Yunus did, it is important to find the best way to meet the needs of the poor, which means finding a system that satisfies both the expectations of the poor and the requirements of a sustainable initiative.
In the case of Benin, the new decentralisation context offers a new parameter to consider while thinking about micro credit for local economic development: the role of the local power in promoting a local micro credit system. The main question addressed by this research is whether a micro credit organisation built on a public-private interface could both offer better conditions for mobilising and securing the local savings and a better access to credit for vulnerable groups such as craftsmen and the follow up of local project holders for added value creation.
An analysis based on survey data of a sample of the key actors involved by the initiative of the Craftwork Promotion Support Found (The Found in the following) in the municipality of Djakotomey (South West of Benin), the craftsmen themselves, supplemented with a study of qualitative data collected on the local government leaders and from the National Micro Credit Unit revealed two major conclusions:
- The local craftsmen’s organisations and the local governments are building a partnership that could be sustainable, because it strengthens the ownership feeling of both parties, which guarantees that their common interests will be safe. The feeling to be close to the credit offering organisation is very strong and could be another sustainability factor for these organisations as the craftsmen feel more confident in putting their savings in a case that is also owned by the “State”.
- As co-owners of the initiative, craftsmen feel confident in a better access to credit as they have a say in one of the most critical parameters of the deal: the arbitration to determine an interest rate that is affordable by them as well as interesting for the sustainability of the Found.
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