Urban women's informal savings and credit systems in Zambia

The author comments on research into poor urban women's survival strategies done in Zambia in 1994, funded by the Natural Resources Department of the British government's Overseas Development Administration. Chilimba is an informal savings and credit system, one variation of the ROSCAs (Rotating Savings and Credit Associations) successfully in use throughout Africa and elsewhere. The author discusses the potential for intervention designed to enable those with no capital or regular income to participate, and to increase and widen the benefits gained from participation.