Women Saving for Resilience

Innovation Fund

The Women Saving for Resilience (WS4R) Innovation Fund supports gender intentional COVID-19 response and recovery efforts related to Savings Groups. The fund aims to improve the resilience of Savings Groups and their members in times of crisis, and the capacity of sector stakeholders to engage them in emergency response efforts.

The SEEP Network received nearly 300 proposals to the WS4R Innovation Fund, representing a wide breadth of experience and solutions from across the globe. After an extensive review, we are delighted to announce that WS4R innovation grants have been awarded to DreamStart Labs, ElleSolaire, Global Communities, World Renew, and the Zoological Society of London.

Starting in March 2021, the awards will support innovative COVID-19 response and recovery efforts related to Savings Groups, in the areas of women’s livelihoods, voice and leadership, violence against women, digital Savings Groups, crisis and emergency risk communications, access to finance, and clean energy.

Meet the WS4R Innovators

DreamStart Labs

DreamSave is a market-leading digital savings group application used across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This award-winning FinTech solution from DreamStart Labs simplifies recordkeeping, and helps users achieve savings goals, build credit history, and connect to formal financial services. The SEEP Network is supporting DreamStart Labs to develop two new functionalities: 1) In-App Communications will allow partners to deliver secure customized messages and micro-surveys to millions of underserved women in remote areas, for improved long-term monitoring, and emergency and crisis communications, and 2) Data-Driven Credit Scoring will use advanced analytics to deliver personalized credit scores for both groups and members, for improved commercial relationships between Savings Groups and financial institutions. These new DreamSave features will be tested in Benin, in collaboration with TechnoServe and partner financial service providers, and made available to all DreamStart Labs customers and partners worldwide.

ElleSolaire

Based in Senegal, ElleSolaire supports women’s empowerment in West Africa through clean energy entrepreneurship. The SEEP Network is supporting ElleSolaire to expand its Savings Group network to include 120 new ElleSolaire Entrepreneurs, creating new livelihood opportunities for rural women through technical, commercial, and digital skills and resources. The initiative will address the basic lighting and energy needs of over 150,000 individuals in targeted off-grid communities through an empowered women-led distribution network for products such as solar lamps, home solar systems and clean cookstoves, and the electrification of 30 off-grid maternal health clinics.

Global Communities

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing movement towards the digitization of humanitarian and development work – including Savings Group. The evidence, however, is that most digital transformation projects fail; and technology-based solutions can place women at greater risk because of preexisting disadvantages. Building upon more than five years of experience as early adopters of Savings Group technologies, and research on the gendered and social dynamics of Digital Savings Groups, Global Communities, in partnership with Women for Women International, will develop and test a toolkit to guide organizations through the gender intentional digitization of Savings Groups.

World Renew

With support from the SEEP Network, World Renew will build and strengthen 13 Cluster Level Associations (CLAs) in Uganda, to enhance the capacity of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) to respond to the gendered impacts of COVID-19 – related to gender-based violence, voice and leadership, and access to markets. These CLAs will advocate for the prevention of GBV through the Stepping Stones methodology, improve women’s access to and control over resources, and expand members’ access to public and private service providers in the region. Learning will be consolidated into a practical, gender intentional, facilitation toolkit for CLAs.

Zoological Society of London

Our Sea Our Life is an innovative community-led marine conservation project in northern Mozambique that establishes locally managed marine areas (LMMAs), based on local governance and management mechanisms, and sustainable finance through Savings Groups. The SEEP Network is supporting the Zoological Society of London to expand the project, and to conduct socio-economic research to develop sustainable livelihood opportunities for women in coastal communities. Learnings and best practices will be reflected in revised sections of the Our Sea Our Life toolkit and advocacy efforts, to support the replication and scaling of the approach in Mozambique and beyond.

Learn More about the Innovations