This case study outlines the attempt of Credit Union Empowerment and Strengthening (CUES), Philippines, to transform cooperatives into responsible financial institutions providing financial services and education to the poor.
CUES adopted two initiatives:
* Model Credit Union Building (MCUB) - to provide financial sustainability planning through the P.E.A.R.L.S. monitoring system;
* Savings and Credit with Education (SCWE) - to promote capacity building of women.
The author observes that the project has improved the socio-economic conditions of member households. Institutionalization of training has led to supervisory and regulatory efforts. A long-term impact has been the increase in access to financial intermediation and other services. The future direction is to institutionalize financial and monitoring mechanisms and to spread them to other areas.
As per the study, some of the major impacts of MCUB are:
* Improvement in financial ratios;
* Decrease in the dependence on external credit;
* Shift to capacity-based lending;
* Branding and marketing of good practices.
SCWE has helped in disseminating information on:
* Savings and credit association management;
* Micro-enterprises;
* Health and nutrition;
* Self-confidence.
Some of the challenges that this project faced, according to the study, are:
* Resistance to change and innovation;
* Vast training needs;
* Paucity of time.
The author mentions some important insights for donors:
* Highlight gender issues to maximize impact;
* Create effective policy and regulatory environment to achieve sustainable benefits;
* Adopt, standardize and regularize through legislation, the best practices.
