Income Generating Program (IGP)/Micro Credit Peogram

CEDAR (Concern for Environmental Development And Research) has a vision that came out of social and economic mission of bringing financial service to the poor and the poorest so that they can come out of poverty. As micro credit service provider CEDAR at present is providing micro-credit approximately 11,944 families through its 11 branches in 10 Upazilas of 04 different districts both in urban and rural areas. The Urban areas are in Dhaka, Gazipur and Narayanganj cities. The rural areas are Gazipur, Narshingdi, Narayanganj districts. CEDAR has been providing financial services for disadvantaged communities in Greater Dhaka of Bangladesh since early 1996. The program has evolved over decades and presently offers services in mobilization of savings, micro-credit, enterprise credit, asset creation specialized services for ultra poor households by technical and financial assistance of PKSF. These services are provided through groups, most of the groups and their members are rural women. CEDAR has started micro credit through replication of PKSF model in the year 1996 in one of the Dhaka city slums, since then it has served 11,944 families through 9,719 Borrowers and had disbursed Tk. 11,84,31,000/- as loan till October 31, 2018. Present outstanding loans stands at Tk 22,18,47,249/- and total savings deposit of Tk 6,72,31,187/-. A successful Micro-finance program starts with clear objectives to set up permanent institutions with systems designed to provide standard financial service on a long-term sustainable basis. This objective implies following key things: good quality financial products and services, delivery by an appropriate institution on a profitable basis to satisfy clients who continue to value and use those services. Quality of financial services means, which would meet the needs of the poor community and not only the needs of financial institution. Under the Income Generating Program (IGP) each group has 15-30 members. They receive an orientation on financial procedures and discipline. The savings by each member of the group starts from the inception of group formation. They usually save taka 20-50 a week. Following this process of group discipline and savings in about 7 days time the members start receiving micro credit. Each member can borrow taka 20,000 to taka 69,000 as Jagoron loan. The successful micro borrowers can apply for Agrosor Micro Credit. Agrosor loan is a service product to assist group members to set up larger scale economic activities which result in enhanced income and employment opportunities. The amount of the enterprise loan ranges from taka 70,000.00 to taka 10,00,000.00.