Livelihoods

Pact responds to economic challenges faced by the poor through savings mobilizations, microenterprise development, and market-based livelihoods development activities that increase household income. Pact's strategy links support to community-based organizations through targeted training, technical assistance and grant making with efforts to enhance the organizational and technical sustainability of our partners.

Our approach provides sustainable financial services and business opportunities for the poor as well as support for financial institutions to strengthen their capacity to effectively manage ongoing microfinance programs and rural business information systems.

Pact engages with local partners through a broad range of activities, including:

• Support to microfinance institutions (MFIs) to design and manage services. MFIs learn how to achieve financial and institutional sustainability, do strategic planning, develop savings and credit group rules, maintain accurate records, and connect with the commercial banking sector.
• Market-based livelihoods development approaches using a variety of tools and techniques to assess and develop a market for local products, improve the local production capacity and strengthen supply channels. These include the use of a market value-chain livelihoods analysis to determine market niches and purchasing power and a bottom-up assets and vulnerability assessment tool to determine community-level resources and needs as ell as creating product-to-market linkages.
• The WORTH program: a literacy-based, savings-led microfinance program that helps vulnerable groups—particularly poor women—to establish and operate their own village banks and acquire skills in managing micro- and small enterprises. The women receive dividends from the interest on the loans they make within the group, in addition to income from their businesses. The program uses an appreciative approach that empowers women also to become more active in their communities and in family decision making.
• Strengthening agricultural markets by developing and disseminating useful information and news, including market prices, weather forecasts, and suggestions for business planning, marketing tips and strategies via newspaper, radio and trade fairs. Pact also supports establishment of sustainable, independent, community-driven media and information-providing entities that engage community leaders and organizations in intersectoral partnerships and coalitions to sustain rural information/communications.
• Group lending methodology and stimulating small business ventures through a range of small business support services. After Savings and credit groups have had an opportunity to mature, they unite into village credit organizations (ViCOs) that are run by member elected boards. The ViCOs ultimately assume full operations of the microcredit program and form the basis of a microfinance institution.
• Providing training and technical assistance to improve governance and financial accountability and transparency of CBOs implementing wildlife-related enterprises, including mapping information needs, resources, regional means and flows, and sharing of best practices.

Projects

WORTH
Myanmar
DRC
Kenya
Mongolia

Partners

Anvil Mining Company
Global Development Alliance
Packard Foundation
Project Concern International
Swedish International Development Agency
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army World Service Organization
United Nations Development Program
US Department of State
US Agency for International Development

Resources

Savings-Led and Self-Help Microfinance in Cambodia: Lessons Learned and Best Practices
This report was commissioned by Pact Cambodia's WORTH initiative with two objectives. It studies three existing programs in Cambodia with similar characteristics, drawing out lessons learned and best practices for WORTH's design, though the conclusions should be of interest to a wider community of practitioners. The study also analyzes the current state of microfinance in Cambodia, assesses shortfalls in meeting demand, and suggests that an innovation like WORTH may be a necessary complement to the current microfinance models practiced in Cambodia.

The PISA ACTION Guide: Community-Driven Tools for Data Collection and Decision Making
Participatory Information Systems Appraisal (PISA) represents a shift in our predominant way of thinking about information for economic and social development. Developed in Mongolia over a four-year period by Pact, PISA adapts a well developed familzy of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools for today's information-intensive economy. The PISA Action Guide systematically introduces and explains the concepts and strategies needed to make well informed, data-based decisions while empowering key stakeholders in the process.

Staff contacts

	Christine Mueller Program Officer Washington, DC cmueller@pacthq.org
	Marcia Odell Director, WORTH and Senior Advisor to the WORTH Center for Gender and Women's Empowerment Washington, D.C. modell@pacthq.org

Related Links

Consultative Group to Assist the Poor - www.cgap.org
Microfinance Gateway - www.microfinancegateway.org
MicroLinks - www.microlinks.org
Small Enterprise Education and Promotion Network - www.seepnetwork.org
The Microcredit Summit - www.microcreditsummit.org/
WORTH - www.worthwomen.org