MFI Report

In the beginning the organization mainly was focused on entrepreneurship skill enhancement of the sub urban sector in Punjab. The onus in the beginning was to develop small enterprises through skill enhancement and entrepreneurship trainings and for financing this activity the organization acted as a intermediary body, referring people to banks like First Women Bank and other alike institutions. The credit activity of the organization started in 1997 with a small grant from Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) of Rs. 658,000, this project was undertaken as an action research and included associated social areas of Health, Education and Women Rights. This project continued on for one year. On the basis of the first project of CIDA and the experiences that were gathered, CWCD decided to take up a project from Trust for Voluntary Organization (TVO) in 1999. This project had a financial assistance of Rs. 532,000. On the foundation of experiences that were learnt from CIDA, CWCD was able to develop its own model of micro financing suitable to the geographical and social conditions of project area. This project was limited to 68 families of Badami Bagh,lahore which were provided with micro-credit for their economic uplift. The project had time duration of one year. Based on the success in TVO project CWCD approached CIDA once again in 1999. The project was for a total amount of Rs. 3.3 million and was focused on Women rights, Child rights and Health Education. The project continued on for two years. The main aim of this project was to create awareness among 24 villages about women rights, girl child rights, health issues and spread of literacy. In 2002 CWCD decided to expand its horizon to other donors and to gather more funding sources for its proposed programs. Therefore CWCD decided to get registered with Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) for its micro credit module while at the same time it decided to gather funding from TVO and CIDA for its sustainable literacy programs. The total amount of funding availed in this year amounted to Rs. 6.9 million. The objectives set out in this year were for the economic uplift of 150 women entrepreneurs and their families and to spread quality education among 50 villages around the suburban areas of Lahore. These project had a duration of three years ending in 2004. With this funding CWCD was able to expand its portfolio and was able to cater to a larger segment of people. At the end of 2004 CWCD felt that its operations had expanded into different areas and the amount of funding received had increased. Since there had not been a planned increase in funding CWCD lacked the organizational capacity to handle larger amounts of funds being given to it for its project programs. Therefore it was decided to conduct strategic planning so as to enable it to develop a road map for its future growth. KZR was therefore selected as a consulting body to develop a plan for future for CWCD. While at the same time CWCD was able to get funding of Rs. 1.2 million from Financial Sector Strengthening Program (FSSP) of Swiss Development Agency (SDC) for the development and documentation of its systems, enabling the organization to act in a more professional and streamlined manner. Ford Rhodes Sidat Haider & Co. (FRSH) was contacted thereon to conduct an analysis and to develop the business documentation for CWCD encompassing various areas of its operations, both internal and with those relating to its field activities. Therefore after a year of research and development FRSH was able to develop eight business manuals, which covered areas from finance, micro finance operations, business administration to monitoring and organization structure. After these efforts of FRSH, CWCD decided to implement these system in their true spirit and therefore was able to increase its funding capacity from PPAF from 2004 onwards reaching a target of Rs. 90 million in 2006 (Rs. 40 million for enterprise development fund (EDF) and Rs. 50 million for Micro Credit (MC)). Recently in 2006 CWCD was also granted Rs. 3 million for setting up for Micro-Enterprise Support Services Cell which would enable to give support services other than finance to its credit borrowers. This was also done along with the credit amount of Rs. 5 million that was received to the borrowers of CWCD by Orix Leasing Corp. The program from Orix started in February 2006 and was successfully completed in October 2006. FUTURE PLANS: CWCD works with the semi-urban rural communities in and around Lahore, and is dedicated in its approach to solve the poverty problems faced by the people in those areas. Therefore the organizational philosophy of CWCD is centered on poverty alleviation through micro credit in areas where there is an inherent requirement for this kind of financing. It has been planned that the operational overhead costs for the organization would be brought down through better targeting of clientage which CWCD believes would lead to a minimal default rate, along with reducing other overheads through best management practices. A forecast analysis has also been done along these lines with a positive outlook of being self-sustainable (102%) within next year (2007). The forecasts are further strengthened with cash flow outlook for the next three years predicting both an expansionary phase for CWCD, while at the same time having a high sustainability ratio. CWCD furthermore envisions itself to expand in skill rich areas of Pakistan and have envisioned a model through which it would invest it resources to expand its area of activities in other districts of Punjab in the next few years. Hide