Women’s financial inclusion
Supporting women farmers in Andean communities to access finance from credit funds, financial education and technical support.
A training workshop on the principles of solidarity savings groups (Photo: Jazmin Chavez)
Financial exclusion is one of the most persistent and crippling barriers facing rural women. In the Andean communities of the Cotacachi area in Ecuador’s Imbabura province, accessing credit through traditional banks is nearly impossible for women farmers due to a lack of collateral, high interest rates and excessive bureaucracy.
Faced with this reality, the Central Women’s Committee of the Union of Peasant and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi (UNORCAC) decided to create its own solution to strengthen their livelihoods and ensure food sovereignty. UNORCAC brings together 700 members (620 of whom are women) from Indigenous Peoples who manage more than 6,170 hectares of the ancestral Andean Chakra system.
Forest and Farm Facility activities
In November 2024, with technical support and funding from the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF), the committee implemented an innovative financial initiative: a comprehensive financial education programme and its own in-kind credit fund.
FFF supported the design of a financial education manual tailored to the realities of rural communities, which served to revitalise and strengthen community savings groups (small local savings and credit groups self-managed by the women themselves, where capital circulates on a solidarity basis, with minimal interest, to cover emergencies).
The in-kind credit fund was developed in parallel to inject capital into the farms. This innovative mechanism provides financing as working capital and inputs for the farm (with a ceiling of up to US$800 per person) rather than as cash – which runs the risk of being diluted in daily household expenses.
Significance of impact
To date, a total of $12,742 has been invested as productive seed capital, directly benefiting 30 families. Of these loans, 93.3% were granted to women, all recipients who self-identify as Kichwa Indigenous Peoples and many of whom are young producers.
The loans were used to purchase chickens, pigs, commercial feed, plants and construction materials. This not only diversified the women’s smallholdings but also built resilience against climate change by ensuring multiple sources of income and food.
FFF also ensured each disbursement was accompanied by ongoing technical assistance. The women farmers received practical training in pruning and grafting fruit trees, poultry health and the production of organic bio-inputs.
Conclusion
FFF support was essential to establish this self-sustaining fund for UNORCAC’s Central Women’s Committee. FFF helped to efficiently manage the funds and recover the portfolio, creating a revolving and sustainable financial mechanism.
Today, in-kind credit is living proof that when finance is adapted to the realities of rural women’s lives, it becomes the most powerful and responsible engine for rural development.
Further reading
News: Investing in biodiverse agriculture in Ecuador’s highlands: UNORCAC and the Santa Anita cooperative, IIED (2024)
Managing agrobiodiversity in successful smallholder landscapes in Ecuador, María Alegría Piñán Cajas (2023), agrobiodiversity case study
Mobilising internal finance within a forest and farm producer organisation: a case study of the Santa Anita Savings and Credit Cooperative, Hugo Carrera Rueda and Virginia Vallejo Rojas (2023), project report