Where We Work : Sierra Leone : Microfinance

Every week in Sierra Leone, 9,300 women attend their local BRAC microfinance meetings. They come to repay their weekly loan instalments, apply for new loans, and buy health products from their community health promoter.

Our microfinance programme has been designed to serve a large number of poor people – mostly women – with reliable access to cost effective financial services.

They also receive additional support  – such as specialist training and input supplies - for their varied small businesses.

The programme now operates from 20 branches in and around Freetown and Port Loko district.

Main features

• Village Organisations
• Micro loans

Village Organisations

The village organisation is the basis for BRAC to provide microfinance and other programs to the community. A village organisation is a group of 20-30 women that meets weekly to discuss credit decisions and make loan repayments.  New borrower groups meet four times before any loan disbursement takes place.

Micro loans

Our main microfinance product is the micro loan. We offer this exclusively to women on low incomes who are not served by other microfinance institutions in Sierra Leone.

Borrowers typically operate businesses that provide products or services to their local communities. They range in age from 20-50 years and have little or no education.

We go directly to the poor women we are targeting and meet them in their villages, homes and places of work.

Features of Micro loans:

• Exclusively for women
• Loan repayments in small weekly instalments
• No physical collateral needed
• Loan range: USD 50-800
• Competitive interest rates
• Loan forgiveness and grant given to dependants upon borrower’s death
• Services delivered to member’s village
• Available in rural and urban areas