摘要：A self-help group (SHG) is a village-based financial intermediary usually composed of 10–20 local women. Most self-help groups are located in India, though SHGs can also be found in other countries, especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Members make small regular savings contributions over a few months until there is enough capital in the group to begin lending. Funds may then be lent back to the members or to others in the village for any purpose. In India, many SHGs are 'linked' to banks for the delivery of microcredit. SHGs are member-based microfinance (having its origin in Bangladesh) intermediaries inspired by external technical support that lie between informal financial market actors like moneylenders and collectors on one hand, and formal actors like micro finance institutions and banks on the other. A Self-Help Group may be registered or unregistered. It typically comprises a group of micro entrepreneurs having homogenous social and economic backgrounds; all voluntarily coming together to save regular small sums of money, mutually agreeing to contribute to a common fund and to meet their emergency needs on the basis of mutual help. They pool their resources to become financially stable, taking loans from the money collected by that group and by making everybody in that group self-employed. The group members use collective wisdom and peer pressure to ensure proper end-use of credit and timely repayment. This system eliminates the need for collateral and is closely related to that of solidarity lending, widely used by micro finance institutions. To make the bookkeeping simple enough to be handled by the members, flat interest rates are used for most loan calculations.
