CENTRE FOR SELF-HELP DEVELOPMENT

Institute of micro-finance and cooperative development.

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Make the Poor Self-employed and Entrepreneur

The Chairman of the Center for Self-help Development (CSD), Mr. Shankar Man Shrestha in a webinar organized by CSD on Bhadra2, 2077 (August 18, 2020) urged the officials of Kisan Bahuuddeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Ltd., Lamki, Kailali under the Sudurpaschim Province to dig out the poor and deprived families living in the communities under its area and make them self-employed and transform into entrepreneurs by providing them access to credit. He also suggested that microfinance institutions and cooperatives should focus on the promotion and development of entrepreneurship among their members rather than concentrating on profit maximization. This will in turn boost up their profit and image.

In this interaction program, Mr. Shankar Man Shrestha advised the top officials and branch managers of the Kisan Cooperative to conduct an assessment of the impact of COVID 19 and lockdown on their members businesses. He also opined “Microfinance and cooperative organizations’ interest would be automatically protected if they could raise the businesses of the members”.  He further said that prior to formulation of new strategy to cope with the challenges brought about by COVID 19, each branch should assess degree of effect on the members and categorize them accordingly. He also advised to prepare a list of youths returned from abroad and collect inventory on their knowledge, skill and capacity to bring them to the purview of their support and get them self-employed in their own homesteads. He said, “You should work to boost up their morale and confidence of your members as well as your field staffs. The members should not be intimidated and pressured for repayment in this time of difficulties and rather loan repayment schedule should be revised to suit their needs and capacity to repay.”

In the webinar, Mr. Surendra Kumar Shah, Chairman of the Kisan Bahuuddeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Ltd. also said, “Our organization Kisan Multipurpose Cooperative is now fully self-reliant and is focusing on poverty alleviation and entrepreneurship development of our members rather than making just profit”. He viewed that the cooperation and support of CSD had been instrumental to gear up the serving capacity of the organization and tackling the obstacles confronting the organization.

In the program, Mr. Saroj Kumar Shah, Member of Board of Directors said, “In viewing the present situation, the organization has to move carefully mainly to bring the members to prelockdown condition. It is necessary to move ahead with the policy of increasing internal resources and reducing external debt”.

Speaking in the webinar, General Manager of the Kisan Bahuuddeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Ltd. Mr. Dambar Bahadur Shah expressed his commitment that he would work for maintaining the image of the cooperative and launch programs to uplift the living standard of the deprived families in his working area. He said, “In this hour of crisis we need to bring out relief packages to protect the businesses of the members. We have initiated the digital technology to protect the employees and ensure the efficient service delivery to the members.”

In the program the managers from different branches also shared their individual branch performance and experiences in dealing with the unavoidable circumstances. They also shared on the challenges faced by the members due to this Corona pandemic. They said, “Even in the difficult stalled time majority of the members had paid their installments. Mr. Bechan Giri, Executive Chief of CSD, welcomed the participants and highlighted on the objective of the program. The participants of the webinar were the Chairman, the Board Members and the Officials from both CSD and Kisan Multipurpose Cooperative.

At the end of the program, the participants consented on a way forward to tackle the concurrent problems arisen out of the Corona virus pandemic.
Way Forward
1. Build contact and communication with members to assess the magnitude of Corona impact in their businesses and boost up their morale and confidence to resume their businesses.
2. Categorize members based on their repayment performance and lockdown effect on their businesses as of the fiscal year end 2076-77.
3. Rescheduling loan repayment up to six months depending on the magnitude of Corona effect in their businesses and revival probability.
4. Prioritize financing to agriculture and livestock enterprises.
5. Provide members additional financing, if required to restart their business and assist them with required technical support.
6. Train the member’s children on microfinance and enterprise management to develop them as a second generation of members.
7. Launch youth self-employment program for returnee youth from abroad and cities to create self-employment.
8. Launch special program for the poorest of the poor and most vulnerable group.

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