Deepening Outreach through Credit Unions: A Review of the WOCCU Ecuador Rural Savings and Credit with Education (CREER) Project (Research Monograph)

This report reviews the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) Rural Savings and Credit with Education (CREER) project that introduced the group savings and credit with education (SCWE) methodology to four mainstream credit unions in Ecuador in 2002. WOCCU partnered with Freedom from Hunger (FFH) in the Philippines to design a group lending and voluntary savings product that would enable credit unions to meet the needs of poor women through microenterprise. CREER covered four regulated credit unions, and encouraged women to graduate from the group savings and lending program to become full, individual members of the credit unions. The report highlights WOCCU's experience in transferring the SCWE methodology from the Philippines to Ecuador. It also presents findings of an assessment study carried out more than a year after donor funding and technical assistance had ended. The study indicated that the credit unions faced both, external and internal program management challenges that may impact the program's sustainability over the long term.