OTIV is a credit and savings cooperative founded in 1993 in Madagascar by the Canadian organisation Desjardins. By 1999, OTIV had 4 branches and 58 local units and served around 22,000 members, in urban and rural locations. Since the beginning of 1999, OTIV launched a new program of women units (the Caisses Féminines) aimed at reaching poor women.

Mission: OTIV’s objective is to supply savings and credit services to all segments of the population, both in rural and urban areas.

Targeting Tool: The conventional members of OTIV are served with individual contracts and OTIV does not employ any direct targeting methods to reach the poorer clientele. As a cooperative, OTIV requires its members to buy a share and to save for six months before receiving a loan. On the contrary, clients of the Caisses Féminines, the poverty focused program, have to form solidarity groups of 5 members and can have a loan without savings, but the amount is smaller. Product design and peer group targeting is used to reach the poorer clientele of this program.

Results of the Poverty Assessment of Clients: The figure below shows the poverty level of clients relative to the population they are in (non-clients). The population (non-clients) is divided into three equal terciles — the poorest third, the less poor, and the better off. The results indicate that while only 12.6% of the conventional members belong to the poorest group, 45.2% of the Caisses Féminines clients belong to poorest group. On the other hand, while 60.7% of the conventional clients belonged to the better off group, only 19.0% of the Caisses Féminines clients belonged to this group. Hence while conventional clients are generally better off, most Caisses Féminines clients belong to the poorest group.

The result of the regular OTIV program reflects the fact that specifically focused programs for very poor women can be extremely efficient in serving the poorest.

Percentage of clients within the three poverty groups

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