Chapter 8: Savings Groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Microfinance has proven its strengths in the fight against poverty, especially in developing and emerging countries. However, it has not solved the problem of access to formal financial services, since until now, less than 10% of Congolese have access to a bank account. Only about 25% use other formal financial institutions products (Central Bank of Congo, 2012). Several reasons may justify the low financial inclusion of the Congolese population.

The country's socio-economic situation has deteriorated considerably the past two decades and more particularly between the 1990s and 2006 (Kalala, 2007). The economic slump has led to: (1) Bankruptcy of state-controlled banks and collapse of privately owned banks and (2) Slowdown of microfinance activities in savings collection and credit distribution. Since 2006, several financial institutions settled in the different provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), including microfinance institutions (MFIs). The population's memory was marked by persistent crises in the microfinance sector, which destroyed trust in the sector (Bugandwa, Bugandwa, & Mutabazi, 2017; Bugandwa, Amuli, & Mulega, 2018). Beyond these external constraints to the expansion of financial access in the DRC, an intrinsic limitation of microfinance is the mismatch between the range of financial services offered and the specific financing needs of the very poor (the poorest of the poor, in the words of Ledgerwood, 1998). Access and use of financial services by Congolese remains a big challenge.