Keeping loan repayments on track
Women’s solidarity groups bring microfinance to the people

Santa Yalla member Siré Mané in Kafountine, Senegal, prepares her smoked fish for transport to neighboring Guinea, where she has expanded her market. Photo by Lamine Coly, USAID/Senegal

Women in Senegal have proven that peer pressure can be a good thing. Just ask the carefully selected members of Santa Yalla, a homegrown loan association.

Santa Yalla, which means “praise God,” brings together women who partake of USAID-funded small loans from one of the only microfinance programs in the country’s southern Casamance region, the Association Sénégalaise pour l'Appui à la Création d'Activités Socio-Economiques (ASACASE). The women entrepreneurs make sure all loans are repaid. They have to be prudent – there’s simply too much at stake.

“This group is working concretely to promote women and fight poverty,” said Kathryn Lane, coordinator of USAID/Senegal’s Casamance program. “Their revenues are sound and they pay their loans on time. They are remarkably organized given that they live in a region troubled by conflict between government and armed separatist forces for two decades.”

Santa Yalla has branches in Bignona, Oussouye, and Ziguinchor districts of the Casamance, each with a president and a treasurer responsible for loan reimbursement. Women are divided into solidarity committees: if one member does not reimburse, the entire committee steps in to pay back the loan. To protect their collective interests, the committee scrutinizes each prospective member to make sure she is credible before bringing her onboard.

Each branch organizes an annual meeting to assess the situation before taking part in a general meeting in Ziguinchor. All committee members pay a yearly fee of 5,000 FCFA (about $10) and this money is put into Santa Yalla’s bank account. Each committee has its own account from which loans are awarded. USAID, through ASACASE, contributes its support to Santa Yalla, which in turn distributes the loan fund it to its different branches, from East to West.

A stone’s throw from Kafountine’s pristine tourist beaches in Senegal’s southwestern Casamance region, Siré Mané, works to expand her smoked fish activity to neighboring Guinea. It’s business as usual this day as she prepares to ship off smoked sardinella, sompat grunt, crevalle jack, and sea catfish.

“Since I got the loan from ASACASE through Santa Yalla and built my oven I feel like I am really doing business,” she explained. “I frequently receive orders from Guinea and as you can see people travel from Guinea to Kafountine to buy products. I delivered an order yesterday and this gentleman in front of you is waiting his order. This indicates you that the business is going well.”

During one of her trips to Guinea she realized that the smoked fish market had expanded greatly, especially in Kindia, Labé, and Zérékoré, and was far from being satisfied. “That is why I am doing everything I can to convince the rural community officials to allow me build more ovens,” said Mané, a mother of four grown children who has hired three full-time and 20 temporary workers to stoke her fires and market her fish.

It’s a challenge for her to stay one step ahead of the game, but with her peers at Santa Yalla, she is making it happen. “Besides expansion we need consistent loans so we can compete with rich businessmen from the subregion who are now investing in the sector,” she said. Annual loans of up to $300 made possible through the USAID program matched with some savings keep her fish business afloat.