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Market Women's Cooperatives: Giving Women Credit, Judith Bruce

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In 1972, the Nicaraguan Foundation for Development (Fundación Nicaraguense de Desarrollo—FUNDE), one of two programs sponsored by the Nicaraguan Institute of Development, became aware of market women's need for credit. This issue of SEEDS describes FUNDE's experience in developing savings and loan cooperatives to meet this need. This summary stresses the human aspects of the process as much as the financial and technical ones. The project has been successful because the cooperatives have built upon the existing market women's culture, utilizing all the subtle and complex interpersonal relationships established over the years. In essence what the cooperatives have done is …