The German Sparkassenstiftung für Internationale Kooperation (DSIK) is supporting the Lao Women's Union (LWU) in professionalizing its microfinance activities. This includes a further strategic development of the partner institution Women and Family Development Fund (WFDF) with a special focus on business continuity management, digitization and capacity development for specialists and middle management.

The LWU has also founded many community-based financial organizations (CFO). DSIK is helping LWU to introduce a support and control system for the purpose of formalizing the CFOs. At the heart of the system is a simple evaluation mechanism that incorporates key financial indicators and compliance with the LWU regulations. This allows the LWU to analyze the data obtained through an established reporting system.

Another major founder of CFO or Village Banks was a now closed project of GiZ. In this peculiar arrangement the over 800 Organizations are connected to seven apex institutions that are registered as Savings and Credit Unions. We are now looking into the options to support these institutions in cooperation with the central bank ‘Bank of Lao’ and the Lao Association of Savings and Credit Unions (LASCU).