June 2002

Microfinance and Households Coping with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe: An Exploratory Study

Recommendations

• A set of tools should be developed and tested that would permit MFIs and other programs to better estimate HIV/AIDS-affectedness among their clients and target groups.
   
• Despite the growing financial needs of households coping with chronic illness and death, MFIs operating in countries with high inflation must keep their interest rates and fees in line with inflation or risk eroding their capital base.
   
• MFIs need to consider HIV/AIDS from the standpoint of the organization, its outreach, and its client base. They should focus on ways to manage risks (e.g., mandatory insurance fees) and experiment with measures and services to ameliorate the impact of HIV/AIDS on their target populations. Operations research should be undertaken to determine the feasibility of new programs, services, and products.
   
• The legal framework for non-banking microcredit organizations should be changed to enable them to collect voluntary deposits, such as savings and funeral funds.
   
• MFI loan officers should be trained in communication techniques to enhance their ability to respond to the HIV/AIDS situations they encounter. Also, they should be given basic counseling skills or be informed about existing services to which they can refer individuals.
   
• A similar study ought to be undertaken in a more stable economic environment. The economic impacts of HIV/AIDS on households and of microfinance on affected clients may thus be more apparent, since these will not be co-mingled with negative macroeconomic factors.

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This page updated
19 Oct 2007