Développement international Desjardins:
Serving people through finance

A component of the Desjardins Group, the largest integrated cooperative financial group in Canada, Développement international Desjardins (DID) is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to empower the disadvantaged in developing countries and countries in transition by developing community owned and operated financial institutions, mostly cooperative networks, which will have an impact on the community. With over 100 employees and active in some twenty countries, DID is a world leader in providing consulting services and technical assistance to the community finance sector. Its expertise is particularly sought out in order to set up base institutions and organize them into networks, introduce new financial products, turn around crisis situations, modernize operations, design supervision strategies, draft legislation concerning savings and credit cooperatives and provide training for various stakeholders involved in the local finance sector.

Here are some examples of projects carried out by DID in recent years:

Haitian financial cooperatives, a collective asset

In Haiti, DID is providing support to approximately sixty financial cooperatives that are making a real difference in their community. The members, who are also the owners, are determined to protect their assets.

Despite the disturbances in that country that caused considerable vandalism, not a single financial cooperative was damaged. "The cooperative is my business, my asset, it stands for life in our community," says Génia Patrice, a member of one of the cooperatives. In the fall of 2005, DID won a ten-year mandate from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to continue providing support to the financial cooperatives and help build capacity in the Haitian community finance sector (the financial sector that seeks to reach the disadvantaged members of the population).

Helping both urban and rural areas

The rural agricultural sector makes up as much as 80% of the working population in many developing nations and makes a major contribution to development of the local economy. Financial cooperatives therefore can provide essential leverage for development in this sector.

The challenge of isolation
“In Chiapas, the SERFIR cooperative is facing the major challenge of reaching out to a very geographically scattered population. The notion of access to financial services is all the more important in our case,” explains Oscar Miguel Armas González, Assistant Director of SERFIR-Chiapas. To deal with this difficulty, his institution recently set up operations using the Spanish version of AMIO.

The AMIO Cajero teller software complements the SERFIR mobile services already delivered to local communities. Cashiers travel to collect savings deposits from members in remote areas. Without this service, they would simply have no access to any financial services. The AMIO Cajero makes it possible for these people to see their transactions performed in a more effective and secure manner. This solution has already been highly successful within mainly indigenous communities where it was introduced and has attracted many new members.

AMIO software is offered in two distinct versions, the teller version and the credit version. The first provides low cost computerization of small scale financial cooperatives or those located in remote areas. It is a highly interesting solution to maintain quality services in rural areas such as the small village of Dioro, in Mali. The second version provides new mobility to loan officers. Using AMIO credit, they can travel far out into remote regions carrying their members’ files in a handheld computer.

Meeting member needs first

Financial cooperatives are part of the community, close to their members and committed to meeting their needs properly. To reach that goal, they must diversify the products and services they offer and accompany their members as their situation evolves, including through the difficult periods that they may encounter.

Supporting entrepreneurs… and their community
“Businesspeople play a crucial role in developing local communities. They create jobs, stimulate the economy and help provide better living conditions for the whole community. CENCOPAN is therefore very concerned with meeting the needs of this clientele,” states Dr. Modesto N. Segovia Boltes, president of CENCOPAN (Central de Cooperativas Nacionales del Paraguay).

Micro and small enterprises make up a major portion of the clientele of DID partner financial institutions. By playing a key role in the economic growth of their community, they have a direct impact on the fight against poverty. But for these businesses to grow, they need access to financial services adapted to their needs. Therefore this is a priority that many DID partner institutions are dealing with by setting up financial centres for entrepreneurs (CFE) or other specialized services designed to meet the specific needs of this clientele.

Mamadou Touré, Director General of the PAMÉCAS network in Senegal estimates that the CFE that was just set up constitutes the missing link in the services they were providing. “Before the CFE was introduced, businesspeople told us: "You have been helping us since the start but now that our needs have grown, you are letting us down." We were made aware that to serve our members and keep them as members we needed to provide a service adapted to their needs.”

Give people the means to rebuild their lives
In Sri Lanka, the second most affected country by the tsunami that hit the shores of Southeast Asia in December 2004, one institution has made a name for itself through its crucial contribution to the reconstruction and the social and economic development of the country – SANASA. It is a network of approximately 8000 financial cooperatives with over 850,000 members throughout the country. The tsunami affected several hundred of these financial cooperatives, depriving their members of access to essential financial services. Their reconstruction is essential since the financial services they provide help people build homes, acquire basic equipment and relaunch economic activities.

DID was asked by the Desjardins Group to manage a fund worth one million Canadian dollars to assist reconstruction efforts, working in collaboration with SANASA. The efforts made are designed to take the next step after initial emergency aid efforts in order to relaunch economic activities for the coops and for the community. They will also strengthen SANASA operations and its financial cooperatives making them more reliable and effective.

“In addition to emergency assistance, long-term assistance must be provided to deliver the means for development for the poor and marginalized families so that they do not slide back into poverty. Families that have been affected by the tsunami must have access to long-term loans in order to rebuild their assets and equip themselves to earn a living. Loans for higher amounts are also required to rebuild community installations. These are some of the priorities for SANASA,” explains Dr. Podi Appuhami Kiriwandeniya, President of the SANASA Development Bank and director of the SANASA cooperative movement.

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has joined Desjardins in the support project for SANASA, as has the Société d’habitation du Québec (SHQ) which is providing specific assistance for reconstruction of homes destroyed by the tsunami.

Adopting training programs adapted to local needs
In Tanzania the Dunduliza organization is currently working to develop a federated network for the country's financial cooperatives, known as SACCOs. This network will be aimed at making SACCO operations more professional and increasing the level of professionalism of directors, staff and technicians. That is why Dunduliza adopted the Professional Financial Cooperative Management Program(PFCMP) distance training program.

This program is the English-language version of the distance training program developed by DID several years ago that has proven its effectiveness in French-speaking Africa where over 2500 participants have taken advantage of it in over fifteen countries. The PFCMP was first delivered using local tutors who were then able to deliver the program on a wider basis so that more people could benefit from it. Dunduliza is working to do the same in collaboration with the Moshi University Cooperative College of Business Studies (MUCCoBS), a teaching institution.

For Tasilo Joseph Mahuwi, Dunduliza Director General, “The cooperatives have to be efficient on both social and economic levels. This dual requirement has an impact on those hired to work in the coops. That is why Dunduliza has focused on ensuring a greater level of professionalism for its staff in cooperative finance. This initiative will allow us to ensure the level of professionalism that is needed for good governance, proper mastery of our computer systems and the wide range of challenges associated with performing our work.”

In Russia, development of the financial cooperatives receiving support from DID also involves the adoption of a recognized and standardized training program. This initiative, launched by the national federation, will facilitate the exchange of expertise from one region to another and reinforce skills within the coops. The distance training program that will be developed will be adapted to the context of the Russian cooperatives. It will lead to a recognized diploma, since it will be developed and offered with support from the Rostov State University of Economics. The program will rely on hiring tutors who will deliver the training throughout the country.

Inter-cooperation at work:
Africa modernizes its operations with the help of Desjardins cooperatives

In Africa, many of the financial cooperatives supported by DID still enter transactions manually. Computerization enables the cooperatives to carry out transactions much faster and more securely. To help African financial cooperatives with this challenge, DID delivers software that meets their needs and helps them introduce efficient computerized operations. Nearly 270 Desjardins financial cooperatives have put inter-cooperation at work and made financial contributions to this computerization project for DID African partners. Plans call for over 100 community finance institutions to be computerized by the end of 2007.

Sharing success with the community: the case of PAMÉCAS in Senegal

In July 1994, with financial support from the Canadian International Development agency (CIDA), Développement international Desjardins (DID) started the support project for savings and credit mutuals in Senegal (PAMÉCAS). This project, begun at a time when the microfinance sector was weak in Senegal compared to other countries in the West African sub-region, was carried out over a period of 10 years and ended in December 2004. Over the course of the project, PAMÉCAS came to designate the Senegalese institution itself rather than the project that launched it. Today it stands for the Partenariat pour la mobilisation de l’épargne et du crédit au Sénégal (partnership to mobilize savings and credit in Senegal).

The main results targeted by the support project were:

• increased access to quality mutualist financial services, especially for women
• profitability and overall security
• self development and self governance for the mutualist movement.

These goals have all been more than met. Today, PAMÉCAS is a mature financial institution that is well established, dynamic and effective. The network, comprised of 30 savings and credit mutuals in the Dakar area, has some 280,000 client-members. In all, 700,000 Senegalese women and men currently benefit, directly or indirectly, from the network's services. It has over CAN $30 million in savings and assets of over CAN $43 million. These figures are all the more impressive considering that the average loan in Africa is around $700.

For several years now PAMÉCAS has been run entirely by Senegalese women and men. They occupy all executive and technical positions and account for all volunteer directors (members of the boards of directors). Thanks to excellent management, the institution makes a profit and has financial and operational self-sufficiency of approximately 150%. At the same time, strict management of loans, combined with continuous monitoring in the form of inspection and auditing, have made it possible to maintain overdue loan payments at a very low level: the portfolio at risk (90 days) is under 3%. This shows the concern that PAMÉCAS has for the security of its members' savings and proves that its good results are being achieved on a sustainable basis.

One innovative feature at PAMÉCAS is undoubtedly the place of women within the network. Thanks to targeted strategic planning, women make up over 60% of the membership and account for over a third of elected positions. They are also offered exclusive products to meet their specific needs.

Finally, the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of PAMÉCAS were the occasion to officially launch the PAMÉCAS Foundation. Financed each year with a percentage of the profits of the base cooperatives, the foundation targets three sectors that are considered a priority for the well-being of the population: health (support for financing equipment and infrastructures in the most disadvantaged sectors of the country in addition to financing a health mutual), education (setting up a grant program accessible to all potential students) and cooperation (incentive programs for deserving directors and technicians who encourage Senegalese women and men to become more involved in promoting the cooperative model). For example, one cooperative built the wall of a primary school, while another dug a well at a rural school. During a malaria telethon organized in 2003 by the Senegalese government, PAMÉCAS presented a cheque for over CAN $10,000.

Last updated: 04 June 2007