Origins of the project
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Hrishipara is a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Kapasia, a market town in central Bangladesh.
Hrishipara is the home of Shohoz Shonchoy, a pro-poor microfinance provider specializing in ultra-flexible savings and loan products for very poor people. Shohoz Shonchoy offers a daily collection service to its clients for savings deposits and loan repayments.
Shohoz Shonchoy was founded by Stuart Rutherford in 2002, six years after he founded SafeSave in Dhaka.
For a look at what the Hrishipara area is like, see this CGAP video which features Shohoz Shonchoy and some of our diarists:
The Hrishipara Daily Diaries project started in May 2015 when Shohoz Shonchoy decided to track the money transactions of a handful of its clients on a daily basis, in order to look for ways to improve its savings and loan services.
The project expanded after July 2015 when CGAP (based in the World Bank and promoting Financial Inclusion worldwide) began to provide support. CGAP was interested in learning more about the economic and financial behaviour of low-income households, especially their use of MFI services, their use of mobile-phone payment and financial services, and the cash-flows of smallholder farmers.
When the CGAP funding finished we continued using our own savings, and in order to economise we dropped the participating number of diarists to 40. However, with the arrival of fresh funding from UNCDF starting June 2017 we have raised the number again to 60.
The UNCDF funding ended in June 2019 since when we have been generously supported by L-IFT of The Netherlands.
From July 1st 2023 we have been joined by Gojo and Co, and the three entities - Hrishipara, L-IFT and Gojo - now co-own, co-fund and co-manage the Project
