Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.) Join CARE on Capitol Hill for Release of Major Report on the State of Microfinance in Africa

CARE is one of the world's largest humanitarian organizations and brings savings-led financial services to more people in Africa than any other international non-governmental organization. Our report, "Closing The Gap," explains in detail how community-based savings groups, known as village savings and loan associations (VSLAs), offer an effective, sustainable way to begin meeting the enormous unmet demand for financial services in Africa's poorest communities. At the same time, VSLAs offer millions of participants the financial know-how they need to begin seeking vital financial services from formal financial institutions. Nearly half of sub-Saharan Africa's 800 million people live on less than $1 a day. Eighty percent have no access to financial services.

CARE VSLAs are open to all, but focus on women because experience shows their success creates lasting, beneficial change for entire families and communities. The report urges the U.S. government and others to adopt policies promoting financial inclusion for women, and to target such efforts at countries and communities where poverty and discrimination have created the greatest need.

"When poor women have a place to save money, or take a loan to start a small business, they can lift themselves, their families and entire communities out of poverty," says Lauren Hendricks, executive director of CARE's Access Africa. "For financial inclusion to become reality, women must be at the center of policies and outreach."

Founded in 2008, CARE's Access Africa program has reached more than 2.5 million people in 26 African nations. It will reach 30 million people in 38 countries within 10 years. Seventy percent of them will be women.

CARE focuses on offering savings-led microfinance to women as a way of initiating permanent, beneficial social change in Africa. Women are the cornerstone of African economic development, producing the vast majority of Africa's food despite owning less than 2 percent of the continent's land. Because women invest their earnings in their families, programs that promote women's economic development often yield significant benefits for a family's overall well-being.

CARE's VSLAs are typically built by women living on less that $2 per day who collectively save pennies each week, then make small loans to each other to help finance small businesses. CARE offers VSLA members one year of intensive training in managing money, but no direct capital investment. Because VSLAs are self-contained and operated by their own members, they are sustainable and replicable in communities where traditional financial institutions cannot operate.

To download CARE's new microfinance report and learn more about how CARE fights global poverty by empowering girls and women, please visit www.care.org/SOS.

INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE: Lauren Hendricks, executive director of CARE's Access Africa program.