The IVDP — credit to the women of Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri

This paper tracks the organizational and financial history of the Integrated Village Development Project (IVDP) and the self-help group (SHG) network it supports in Tamil Nadu, India. It describes how the network is connecting and negotiating with a variety of formal sector institutions, paving the way towards aligning the “informal” demands of the peri-urban poor and the “formal” sphere of financial institutions, while releasing women from the clutches of moneylenders. The sheer scale of this collective approach has broken through the financial limits of traditional microfinance approaches, demonstrating to banks that poor people can manage their finances effectively and reliably. Currently, the IVDP—SHG network of 100,500 poor women has saved, accessed and revolved the equivalent of UK£ 89.9 million. The IVDP has further leveraged these financial “formal” and “informal” sources in order to integrate low-income housing and infrastructure finance within its overall credit portfolio. This paper highlights and shares the lessons from the network's experience.