Sakh-Se-Vikas- development through finance, the Rajasthan microfinance initiative of the Trust promotes livelihood enhancement programmes that begin with providing access to basic financial services of savings, low cost credit and insurance for the poor communities. Building strong community owned, self-help based institutions is the core strategy of SSV initiative to ensure sustainability of these programmes.

So far, the outreach of the initiative has been limited to 11 districts in east, central and south Rajasthan. SHG-bank linkage which forms the core of a community based microfinance initiative is quite weak in west Rajasthan. The low penetration of banking network, scattered settlements and lack of orientation among local development agencies working in the region are the key reasons for the poor number and quality of self-help groups in west Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, the Government of Rajasthan (GoR) with support from International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) launched a six-year project for six most backward blocks in west Rajasthan. The Mitigation of Poverty in Western Rajasthan (MPOWER) project seeks to reach out to all 86,800 poor households across 1,040 villages in these six blocks through self-help groups (SHGs) to enhance incomes by building capacities, providing financial services and better market access.

The GoR and IFAD expressed their interest to work with the Trust to leverage learnings of Sakh-Se-Vikas into the design and implementation of the microfinance component of the MPOWER project. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlining the contours of this partnership was signed between the Trust and GoR in May 2008. The Trust would specifically support technical and capacity building for microfinance activities and in innovations/demonstration.

Centre for microfinance (CmF), as the nodal agency of the initiative, will operationalise this on the Trust’s behalf. While the project would be operationalised from June/July 2009, CmF initiated the baseline preparation for all the six blocks. A study exploring feasibility of information based technology solutions for microfinance promotion in west Rajasthan has also been initiated. The coming years would thus mark the expansion of the SSV in the underserved region of west Rajasthan in collaboration with the GoR.