CO-Saving for change Over the last 10 years OUS and partners have established Savings-for-Change as an effective Savings-Led Microfinance (SLM) product for the poor in Cambodia. In 2016 over 140,000 people use the product and 40 local organizations have skills is providing the product. The potential market for SLM products in Cambodia is approximately 4 million people and estimates suggest this market is growing at maybe 200,000 per year.
OUS is very aware that the current rate of SfC delivery is much too low and that SLM products have to contend with a range of barriers including wrong perceptions, quality control, market competition, lack of public policy support, lack of development policy support.
There are two main perceptions struggling within the poor. They are #toopoor to save# and #donation/subsidy rather than skills and knowledge#. 18.9% of population is poor (Ref: Cambodia Country Poverty Analysis 2014 by ADB). They arenot willing to save from their income. Furthermore, people are expecting donation while skills and knowledge are enablers to formalaccess financial services such as MFIs/banks.
OUS and partners have limited resources to ensure value for money. Partners# strategic and human resources have not established brokering links for the already-formed groups to legal MFIs/banks. On one hand, Cambodia has a fast growing in micro finance institutions and self-help groups formed by other NGO/INGO projects. On the other hand, their products are of mix of credit and saving-led which are not likely to sustainsince they do not respond to the need of the communities.
OUS sees two constraints surrounding market competition. MFIs/banks are profit-oriented targeting middle-income families. Most of their products are credit-led, i.e collateral loans. Moreover, NGOs/INGOs projects have different strategies to achieve their own projects# goal. There has not been good collaboration to collective impact within communities they are working.
There are not specific policies regulated by the Government to accelerate SLMatthe community. Furthermore, current practice of group savings is informal. For instance, the group is not legally registered and there is not appropriate mechanism to ensure the transparency and accountabilityin group.
Oxfam in Cambodia
OC is interested in seeing access to the product continue to grow in terms of client base but also interested in terms of 1) product versatility 2) client demographic 3) market collaborations and 4) increasing geography.
# Client base
OC and Partners will continueto seek resources needed to make SfC available to a growing client base. This will largely be in terms of leveraging restricted funds, eg RND. Through developing other funding proposal, OC will demonstrate impact of and build donor understanding in SfC. OC will not seek only financial support but also influence other potential development partners to include OC#s clients in their investment.
# Product versatility
The SfC product has proven very effective platform for a wide range of community and development agendas. These include Small and Medium Enterprises, Reproductive health, youth self- esteem, Climate Change Adaptation, alternate livelihoods, women#s leadership. OC will continue to expand this versatility in disability agenda by including personswith disabilities in our target clients.
Past experiences indicate that 85% of existing SfC group members is women. One of the strategic change goals of OC#s Voice for Change (VfC) program is having more women able to access and control resources critical for their livelihoods. In addition, approximately, 600,000 people are employed in Cambodia#s garment and footwear industry. 90% of them arewomen residing in urban. One of the key findings is microfinance loans may potentially put urban poor at the risk oflong-term vulnerability (Ref: Urbanising Disaster Risk by PIN in June 2015). OC will continue partnering with C.CAWDU expand SfC with them. Since C.CAWDU is one of VfC program#s partners, SfC will become a pilot work within the program. VfC program willsee good practices in thispilot work and replicate it amongst other partners.
Youth are also emerging as a new user group. 45% of the population is under 18 years of age and 70% under 30. (Ref: Oxfam Cambodia Country Strategy Paper 2015- 2020). Youth migrates from time to time resulting in becoming the unreached group for other development work. Fortunately, studies suggest that more than 99% of Cambodian are reachable through own phones (Ref: Mobile Phones in Cambodia 2014 by USAID, Open Instituteand TheAsia Foundation). SfC will explore the features of e-banking application compatible with cell phones and/or smartphones to engage youths in economic opportunities.
# Market collaborations
Saving #Led Microfinance is being integrated within developmentprogram of other NGOs/INGOs. OC will organize NGOs/INGOscurrently implementing similar SLM approach to discuss the way to collaborate more efficiently and effectively. Technical Working Group on SLM will regularly meet, identify and share areas of concernsthat Government, CSOs, and MFIs can address together.
SfC will build understanding on SLM to VfC and Natural Resource Governance programs of OC. SfC team will work among the two programs to applySfC as approach of community organizing for project implementation.
OC identifies two potential MFIs in Cambodia - AMK and Vision Fund Cambodia. They have developed diversified products to address the need of the poor, i.e micro insurance. OC will continue to discuss with MFI to offer various types financial services to the graduated SfC group members with special terms that most benefit to the members.
MRD plans to organize an event in May 2016 for national discussion. The discussion will bring all relevant stakeholders including Government departments,MOI,National Bank of Cambodia, commercial banks, MFIs, INGOs, NGOs, and representatives of Saving Group Committee from provinces to discuss the Government#s strategy, mechanism and rules to support micro-finance sector, effectiveness and sustainability of saving groups operations. OC will influence MRD to adapt SfC model in Government#s policies.
# Geography
OUS and OC have recognized that SfC has application in other countries. In 2015 OC helped OTL establish a SfC program. OC has providedSfC training torepresen­tatives from six partner organiza­tions. 100% of them are interested in piloting Savings for Change methodology, starting from FY17. OC team will continue to provide technical support to program officer of Oxfam in Timor Leste and we will jointly seek further funding to continue the introduction of the SfC methodology into Timor-Leste at scale. With OUS support, OC (perhaps in collaboration with OTL) is ready to help other Oxfams establish SfC. Laos is also currently under the OUS# portfolio partnering with LWU. OC will continue working with Oxfam in Laos to build their capacity and provide technical inputs. While Laos is piloting SfC, Myanmar is the next target for SfC. OUS regional management is exploring way to get into this country. After the engagement, OC will conduct the feasibility studies in more details.
SfC in Cambodia is awarded a TIF fund to test a mobile data collection and evaluation tool. By shifting from a paper-based tool to a digital one, we anticipate more efficient andeffectiveway to collect, analyze and report project monitoring. OC expects that the development of MIS online will serve as an effective tool to monitor performance of SfC. OC will introduce the online MIS to other partners and promote for joint implementation sothat we get the data of SLM in Cambodia under control.

Oxfam in Cambodia will continue to strengthen the existing SfC groups and form more groups. SfC#s members will be aware and educated on financial literacy, following by other training including C-BED on profitable livelihood investmentsand leadership training to cultivate women <(>&<)> youth leaders. In FY17, the SfC project is being proposed to be continued and implemented by 4 local NGO partners including Reproductive and Child Health Alliance (RACHA),Save Cambodia#s Wildlife (SCW), Srer Khmer (SK) and Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Workers Democratic Union (C.CAWDU). With Srer Khmer, SfC aims at providing access to finance for landless and small holder farmers. OC will continue good practices and adjust the not-so good practices from the pilot projectreported in an understanding of discussion paper of the Saving to Improve Landless Farmer#s Livelihood (SILL) project. With C.CAWDU, the project will bring SfC to scale with the garment workers in Phnom Penh, where urbanization is getting absolutely enormous fromyear to year. The project#s coverage areas will be targeted at the project design stage with those four partners.
RACHA and SCW will continue implementing the current project interventions. Similarly with these two partners, OC will adjust planning along the way of implementation, if necessary, to ensure that the project is running properly. With SCW, the current SfC project has made a very effective improvement to the livelihood ofSfC#s members. The incomes have risen dramatically since members started small family business after receiving C-BED training. There will be an end-of-project evaluation in July 2016 to assess the impact of the project. With RACHA, OC will inspire for a studyonhowSfChas built self-confident and leadership in women to voice their issues through Women Leadership training.
Project specific objectives:
1. To improve financial security of targeted primary change agents by enabling regular, independent sourceof incomeand reduced debt
2. Increased voice through increasing cohesion of most vulnerable people and solidarity in community including self-replication
3. Enabling environment for saving-led and self-reliance approaches through engagement with government policy,development partners, and private sector to enhance pro-poor products and non-subsidy in place
To align with Cambodia Resilience program, SfC will continue to deliver its Saving-led micro finance products which will bring basic financial services (credit/savings) to the poor for the sake of supporting their livelihoods. These products will also build assets for them to respond to urgent need.
SfC positions itself as cross-cutting theme and platform for all three programs under Cambodia OCS. Therefore, theproject will continue to explore opportunities to integrate SfC in the new program development of other two Cambodia Country Programs such as Voice for Change, Natural Resource Governance, and other program that may arise in thefuture.