SHARE is a microfinance institution providing credit and saving services to a carefully chosen group of poor individuals, mainly rural women. As of January 1999, SHARE provided services to 53,000 women in over 550 villages in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Loans are provided without any collateral to clients who form groups of five.

Mission: SHARE’s objective is to provide access to credit to the rural poor, particularly women, to enable them to improve their quality of living and cross the poverty line.

Targeting tool: SHARE works mostly in villages with a high concentration of low caste people, especially "untouchables." These villages also tend to be the region’s poorest villages. Following a public orientation meeting in the chosen villages, women from poor households are identified based on their demand for services, and their eligibility into the program. Their eligibility is tested using a standard household questionnaire (a combination of the housing index and means test).

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 58% of SHARE clients are from the bottom third of the population and only 3.5% from the better off.

This indicates that compared to the general population, the poorest households are significantly over-represented and the least-poor are significantly under-represented in SHARE's clientele. This is an important evidence of the strong poverty outreach of SHARE.

Percentage of clients within the three poverty groups