Savings and Credit Unions Development in Lao PDR  SACUDIL The expansion means the inclusion of another 5 villages in one province with an extra training component and personnel.  Activities as outlined in scenario 1 will be reproduced for the ‘new to be included’ village development funds with adaptation to the level of development. The expansion will give the opportunity to have more staff working in the same province. At present, the project has one promotion officer for each province. An expansion of staff in one province gives the opportunity to exchange experiences amongst each other and join forces, thereby also maximizing resources. Next to this, the project will also be able to promote the SCU model more widely and offer growth opportunities to already existing credit unions.

Because there will be no changes in project goals, type of activities and strategies, the additional outcomes are also in line with the outcomes of the existing 18 credit unions in scenario 1.

Additional outcomes can be described in terms of: 
-	Increase in number of credit unions
-	Increase in membership base, savings and shares of selected new credit unions
-	Opportunity for more village development funds to be registered as savings and credit unions
-	Increase in understanding on savings and credit union model among a broader target group base
-	Potential increase in membership of Association on the longer term

1.	Data collection and analysis 

Information at village and household level is available at the Department of Planning and Investment (DPI) and Integrated Rural Development (IRD) Department in Luang Prabang. SACUDIL has her office within the Department of Planning and Investment. Both departments are active in the establishment of member based financial structures at the village level. The project will plan a meeting with the key stakeholders of both departments to discuss the inclusion of 5 extra credit unions in the program; based on the outlined criteria (Paragraph: Target Group) and other relevant information. Groups with the most potential will be chosen.

 
2.	Initial meetings and consultation workshops

After the selection of 5 credit unions based on a list of criteria, the project will organize a consultation meeting with both government coordination, credit union leadership and project management. Within this consultation workshop it is most important to analyze the willingness, potential and commitment from the group to participate in the project and become a sustainable financial institution in the long run. All stakeholders need to agree on project objectives. 

After the consultation workshop, project will organize one initial meeting with credit union leadership and village members to explain the SCU model and project objectives.

3.	Recruitment of 2 extra project staff 

Recruitment of new staff will be done after the consultation workshop with government coordination, credit union leadership and project management. When the result has shown to be positive, the project can recruit new staff to take over the responsibility of technical assistance and monitoring of the groups. The recruitment process normally does not take much longer than 1 month. Project management will have to look for office space and equipment to accommodate two extra staff.

All three activities are budgeted for and planned to be done in the first quarter of 2011.

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