Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) provide poor people in remote, rural areas with a safe place to store small amounts, and in doing so to build up a fund from which small, flexible loans can be taken by the members. These independent associations operate in areas that standard microfinance programs cannot reach due to high costs and have proved successful in more than 30 countries worldwide. They work without long-term technical support and injections of donor capital.
Thirty years since the start of the microfinance revolution, poor people who live in many rural areas and urban slums still find it difficult to access appropriate microfinance products, even in countries with a well-developed microfinance sector. VSLAs based in the community are complementary to MFIs tending to serve the very poor whose income is less reliable, but also offering useful services to the economically secure.
This manual offers a set of tools that will enable any organization, whether or not it has experience with microfinance, to set up and run successful VSLAs. It sets out a one-year program of VSLA formation, training and supervision, and includes guidance on approaches to impact evaluation and the use of a simple Management Information System to analyze field officers and overall program performance.
Hugh Allen was for 13 years CARE International’s Chief Technical Advisor for Small Economic Activity in Development in Africa. This guide is a distillation of 16 years experience developing the methodology by CARE International and other organizations.
Mark Staehle is Enterprise Advisor, Chars Livelihoods Programme (CLP), a rural development program of DFID Bangladesh. Prior to joining CLP, Mark was advisor to SafeSave and serves on the board of directors.
Contents: Introduction; 1) How the Methodology works; 2) Schedule of Operations; 3) Preparatory Phase: Awareness Raising; 4) Intensive Phase: Modules 1-8; 5) Supervision: Development and Maturity Phases.
128 pp., 8 1/2" x 11 3/4", January 2008 Published by Practical Action Hugh Allen , Mark Staehle
Village Savings and Loan Associations 
A Practical Guide: