By Mwila Agatha Zaza
For women like Aida, a 56-year-old widow, grandmother and business owner, Widows Savings and Loans Associations (WISALAs) have been a lifeline. After years of keeping her family afloat without recourse to business management training or substantial capital, Aida joined a WISALA and has since been able to build a sustainable, reliable business that proves a decent income.
Aida’s financial security means that she can support her adult children financially and help give her grandchildren a comfortable childhood. Aida reports feeling happy, confident, respected in her community and hopeful about the future.
The Global Fund for Widows (GFW) has worked with over 29,623 widows and female heads of households in Egypt.
In 2023, with backing from HSBC Egypt, GFW set out to establish 40 WISALAs in Alexandria, Minya, and Luxor to support 1,000 widows to own WISALAs. We found that upon joining WISALAs, nearly 71% of widows earned less than the poverty line.They often worked hard, as Aida explains “I was determined that my children would not lack anything. I decided to work in anything I could do. I stayed up all night preparing fava beans on a kerosene stove, and at dawn I went to the village to buy falafel, pickles, and fresh bread at that time there were no bakeries. I would return quickly to sell in the morning, then buy vegetables to sell as well, just to cover household expenses and my children’s education.”
Without capital and the skills to plan her business endeavours, widows like Aida find it difficult to build their businesses to a level that they can provide their families with a reliable and sufficient income.
A post-intervention survey in August 2025 of women who had owned WISALAs for a year showed remarkable results:
· 82 % now earn above the povertyline, with 26 % earning more than double,
· average savings up 503 %,while income rose 228 %.
· Expenditure on children’s education increased by 259 %, and
· during that period 31 inheritance-related legal cases were pursued in court
The WISALA micro-banks themselves gave impressive financial performances: in one year 1,905 internal loans were underwritten. During this period, $72,000 (EGP 3.5 million) was circulated as loans, generating $434,000 (EGP 21.1 million) - this means for every $1 originally invested, the money was circulated over six times as loans within the WISALA.
The change our WISALA approach makes possible is encapsulated in Aida’s words “My story is atestament that the right support at the right time can change an entire life and make a real difference in the future of a whole family.”
