Khabar Khair (Only Good News)

The Social Fund for Development announced that the rural savings and finance groups that the Fund has provided for 3 years support the empowerment of about 2,600 male and female rural citizens to start or expand their own businesses. This support provides the beneficiaries’ family members with the ability to positively adapt and provide social protection in Yemen, according to the official website of the Fund.

The Fund has established the activities of rural savings and finance groups to support the rural population economically. This step came within the framework of enabling them to benefit from the services of financial inclusion and microfinance. That was due to some factors including, their lack of presence in those areas to overcome their scarcity in the countryside, the complexity of their procedures and conditions, their inability to pay interest on loans granted to clients, in addition to the majority of the poor inability to provide the necessary guarantees, as the project description says.

It is worth noting that the VSLAS program works to motivate local communities to establish microfinance systems- that are managed by community members,  building the capabilities and skills of its members in several fields,  encouraging its members to mobilize their savings to establish income-generating projects-which contribute to improving the living conditions of these communities, and enabling  them to face future conditions and potential emergency events.

The Fund implemented the project in five districts in the governorates of Amran, Dhamar, Lahj, Hadramout and Ibb, according to certain criteria that were agreed upon to start working with them.