Winners of Round One of the PPIC

May 6, 2008    

Groupe de Recherche et d’Echanges Technologiques (GRET), Cambodia (Web site available only in French)
GRET received PPIC funds to expand an experimental health insurance system it had designed and implemented in two communes in Kandal province, close to Phnom Penh. The program provides primary health care to both children and adults, including free medical check-ups, and provides cash payments for some secondary care such as childbirth and certain surgical procedures.

Swayam Krishi Sangam Microfinance Ltd (SKS), India
In order to reduce loan delivery costs to their rural customers in sparsely populated parts of Andhra Pradesh, SKS gave clients smart cards and equipped loan officers with hand-held terminals. The objective was to speed loan administration, reduce errors, and increase officer productivity. Even with the additional costs of cards and terminals, SKS calculated that this system would save about $2,000 in costs per branch per year./p>

Freedom from Hunger (FFH), Ghana
FFHG believes that microfinance must be coupled with essential health information in order to overcome the immediate causes of chronic malnutrition. FFHG's "credit with education" integrated intervention therefore provides poor women with both microloans and non-formal adult education through self-managed women's associations. The program has been successful in reaching the very poor, increasing client incomes, and enhancing food security, and has now been replicated across the FFH network.

Centre Beninois Pour Le Developpement Des Initiatives A La Base (CBDIBA), Benin
Realizing the poorest women had trouble joining its regular village banks due to large group and loan sizes, CBDIBA launched a specially-designed program of "mini-credits". These loans, which averaged just $17, are administered through smaller groups, enabling the closer supervision that these clients need. Many of these clients are subsequently able to graduate from this program into the village banks, and this approach has been widely replicated by other institutions.