Economic Empowerment
Afghanaid promotes the notion of savings, internal lending and creation of economically viable opportunities for Afghan rural poor families and communities to start micro and small enterprises; this is done mainly through Self Help groups and Common Interest groups.
Self Help and Common Interest Groups
Afghanaid's Self Help Groups (SHGs) give impoverished people in rural Afghan communities an opportunity to accumulate group savings and build their confidence to undertake income generating enterprises. Common Interest groups (CIGs) are SHGs that have become based on common assets and focused on enterprise. In a group setting SHG members develop the discipline, trust and experience of saving, borrowing and repaying reliably. They also learn to leverage their collective resources, for example savings, labour or skills, to negotiate access to external resources and services, for example business development skills, credit or extension services and eventually access finance from state sponsored banks and micro-finance institutions which Afghanaid has helped foster contacts with.
We believe that putting people and their livelihoods at
the centre of development is critical to ensure long lasting impact and change
in the lives of poor smallholders and producers, however, Afghanaid places
equal emphasis on the markets, as markets matter for the poor as consumers, labour,
producers, entrepreneurs.
1300 men and women in small groups already generate savings and get access to finance in a formalised manner.