WealthResilienceFuture is always built together

Context: From the 1930s, poor families built homes along a polluted channel in central San Juan. When plans to clean and dredge it took shape, residents feared rising land values would push them out.

In Practice: Between 2002 and 2004, residents and officials held over 700 meetings, and residents chose a land trust. Under a 2004 law they pushed for, the trust owns the land so it can’t be sold to developers, while families own their homes.

Since Then: The trust holds about 200 acres, home to some 26,000 people. After years of delay, work began in 2026 to dredge the channel and replant about 35 acres of mangroves along its banks.

Context: A 1968 law let families without savings form cooperatives and build their own homes, with their labour replacing a deposit. In 1970 the cooperatives united into one federation, to fight together for land and loans.

In Practice: Each family works at least 21 hours a week on the building site, and the cooperative takes out one shared loan. The cooperative owns the homes; families have the right to live in them, and units are often assigned by draw once built.

Since Then: FUCVAM now unites about 760 cooperatives and 35,000 families. Under the dictatorship it gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures against a law forcing private ownership, and its model has spread across Latin America.

Context: When Spain’s housing bubble burst, banks took back homes, but families still owed the rest of their mortgage. Many were left homeless and still in debt, so in 2009 people in Barcelona began organising.

In Practice: Decisions are made in open meetings. Members gather at the door on eviction day to block court officials, help families negotiate with banks, and move evicted families into empty flats owned by banks.

Since Then: By 2014 it had stopped over 1,000 evictions, and by 2016 it had rehoused around 3,000 people. Seventeen years on, it is still active and increasingly helps renters, who now account for over 70% of evictions in Spain.

Context: Clearing slums often meant bulldozing homes and evicting residents. Since 2003, a Thai government agency has lent money to slum communities instead of developers.

In Practice: Residents save together and form a cooperative, which takes the loan. They survey their own settlement, negotiate to buy or lease the land together, and plan the rebuild with architects. The cooperative then lends to each household, adding a little interest to cover its running costs.

Since Then: By 2011, over 90,000 households in 1,546 communities had taken part, and over 60% stayed where they were. Most now lease their land long-term or own it together through their cooperative. By 2021, over 130,000 households had benefited.

Context: Despite its strong sunshine, Portugal had no renewable energy cooperative. In 2013, sixteen citizens set one up so ordinary people could invest their savings in clean energy.

In Practice: Members lend money to put solar panels on rented roofs of charities, wineries and small businesses. The electricity is sold to the grid, members are repaid, and when the contract ends the panels are given to the roof’s owner.

Since Then: Around 7,000 members have funded 44 solar installations. Since 2020 the cooperative has also sold renewable electricity on a non-profit basis, with over 6,000 customer contracts by 2025.

Context: In 2002, home broadband in Greece was scarce, slow and expensive. Tech enthusiasts in Athens decided to build their own network instead, without relying on telecom companies.

In Practice: Members buy and mount their own rooftop antennas, linking up through a shared online map. Larger rooftop stations pass data across the city, so the network grows house by house.

Since Then: By 2010, about 1,100 rooftop stations linked nearly 3,000 computers, reaching nearby islands. The non-profit network offered its own phone calls, search engine and streaming. As home broadband improved, it became more of a club for tech enthusiasts.

Context: In the 1970s, Indonesia’s government told Balinese farmers to drop the temple calendar and plant new rice varieties as often as possible. Water schedules fell into chaos, pests exploded and harvests suffered.

In Practice: Each subak is a self-governing group of farmers sharing one water source. At shared water temples, priests set when each group floods and plants. Upstream farmers leave water for those downstream, who in return plant together, so pests run out of food.

Since Then: In the 1980s, a computer model showed the temple schedule balanced water and pests better than the alternatives tested, and officials backed it again. Recognised by UNESCO in 2012, subaks now face pressure from tourism and land sales.

Context: In 2004, Britain’s official map data was locked behind paid licences. A London student decided to make a free map instead, adding his first street after cycling around Regent’s Park with GPS.

In Practice: People add to the map by walking or cycling streets with GPS, tracing roads and buildings from satellite photos, or fixing what they know about their own area. Anyone with a free account can edit, and other mappers check changes.

Since Then: Over 10 million people have signed up, though only a small share edit regularly. In 2010, after Haiti’s earthquake, hundreds of volunteers mapped Port-au-Prince within days, and rescue teams used the map.

Context: In 2012, a group of Toronto residents asked why every household buys tools that mostly sit unused. In 2013 they opened a lending library in the basement of a community centre, stocked with tools donated by neighbours.

In Practice: Members pay about €60 a year, reserve tools online and borrow them for up to a week. Some tools, mostly battery-powered ones, carry a small upkeep fee.

Since Then: By 2018 it had lent over 65,000 items. That year, high rent nearly forced it to close until supporters raised the necessary funds through crowdfunding. It now runs from one site in Toronto, with a shared workshop.

Context: In 2012, a group in Lomé opened Togo’s first FabLab, a shared tech workshop. It drew on traditional village initiation spaces, where young people gathered to learn together.

In Practice: Anyone can join for free. Members teach each other to build electronics, including a 3D printer made from old computers and scanners. Start-ups created there belong to the whole community and tackle local problems such as waste.

Since Then: A second lab opened in Lomé in 2017. By 2023, WoeLab hosted 12 start-ups and had held hundreds of free public events. It also teaches young people to design objects for 3D printing.

Context: The town of Deir Istiya in the northern West Bank has grown olives since at least the 1300s. In 1976, its farmers formed a cooperative and bought a shared press, which founders say was the first in any village around the area.

In Practice: Members own the press together and use it to press their olives. Most of the village’s land is under Israeli control, in an area where the World Bank says new Palestinian wells are rarely permitted. Farmers say they buy the press’s water from Israel.

Since Then: Oxfam worked with the cooperative from 2007, training farmers in tree care and oil quality. By 2015 it had 150 members.

Context: When Europe’s biggest carpooling app BlaBlaCar began taking a cut of each trip in 2011, a group of its users set up a fee-free carpooling website. In 2018 it merged with a local carpooling cooperative to become Mobicoop.

In Practice: Drivers post a route and Mobicoop suggests a price per kilometre, so passengers simply share the driver’s costs. Mobicoop takes no fee on trips. Anyone can buy a €100 share to become a co-owner, with one vote however many shares they hold.

Since Then: By 2022 the cooperative had over 1,200 members and around half a million users. Most of its income comes from running carpooling services for local councils and businesses, not from passengers.

Context: In one of the world’s driest places, Omani villages dug channels to bring water from underground sources and springs. Some run through hand-dug tunnels for kilometres, with shafts down from the surface, so gravity alone carries water to the fields.

In Practice: Households own shares in the water, counted in time rather than volume, usually in half-hour turns. A manager chosen by the owners runs the system. Some water is auctioned off to pay for repairs.

Since Then: Water shares can be inherited, rented or sold separately from the land. Around 3,000 channels still work, some possibly 1,500 years old. Most turns are now timed by watch, but a few villages still use sundials and the stars.

Context: In 1975 a trader started a small wholefood business in Leeds, supplying local health food shops. In 1977 he sold it to his seven workers, who turned it into a cooperative they would own together.

In Practice: Every member earns the same hourly rate and works across different jobs, so a driver might also help in the office. There are no bosses or outside shareholders: the members own and run the business together.

Since Then: Nearly 200 members now run a business with yearly sales of about €70 million. It is the UK’s largest worker cooperative, believed to be Europe’s largest with equal pay and no gender pay gap.

Context: Founded in Freiburg in 1992, with roots in the squatting movement, the Syndikat helps groups buy buildings and take them off the property market.

In Practice: Each house is owned by a small company with two owners: the residents’ association and the Syndikat. That means residents rent their flats from a company they own together. They decide almost everything, but the Syndikat can block a sale or any change to the house’s basic rules.

Since Then: Houses are bought with bank loans and many small, low-interest loans from supporters, repaid from rent. Over 200 houses have joined, and each pays into a shared fund that helps new groups buy.

Context: Quechua farmers near Pisac were losing potato varieties grown for generations, and feared companies would patent the rest. In 2002 they joined their lands into one park, with a shared association that controls access and records every variety.

In Practice: Leaders from each community run the park together, and a group of farmer “potato guardians” looks after the seeds. Every group earning money there, from restaurants to craft makers, pays a tenth of its income into a shared fund.

Since Then: The park now grows over 1,300 potato varieties, including 410 returned from a research seed bank. The communities refuse all patents, and their harvests and incomes have risen steadily.

Context: Young feminist groups are often too small for big funders to notice. Around 2010, young activists set up a fund to pass donors’ money on to such groups in the Global South, led by girls, young women or trans youth under 30.

In Practice: Young activists first check that applicants qualify. The applicants then read summaries of each other’s proposals from their region and vote, anonymously, for their favourites. Nobody can vote for their own group.

Since Then: In 2024 it supported over 200 groups in more than 100 countries, giving over €2.7 million in grants. Its model, the first of its kind on a global scale, has inspired other funders.

Context: During Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence, doctors ran a field hospital for wounded fighters and refugees. In 1972 they moved to Savar, a rural area near Dhaka, and started out in six tents.

In Practice: Families join one health insurance scheme and get the same care. What they pay depends on income: the rich pay most, while the poorest pay very little for care that is almost free.

Since Then: Seven hospitals and 50 smaller clinics now serve around 1.5 million people. Village health workers, many of them young women, visit homes and send serious cases to hospital.

Context: In 1989, a third of Porto Alegre’s people lived in slums on the city’s edges, many without sewers or clean water. A newly elected city government let residents decide how part of the budget was spent.

In Practice: Each year, neighbours in 16 districts meet in open assemblies to rank their area’s needs and elect delegates. A citizens’ council then draws up the spending plan, which the city council approves.

Since Then: By 1996, the share of homes connected to sewers had risen from 46% to 85%. A new city government suspended the process in 2017, citing a lack of money. Widely seen as the birthplace of participatory budgeting, Porto Alegre inspired cities worldwide.

Context: From the 1950s, poor migrants, mostly Aymara from the countryside, settled on the high plain above La Paz. Drawing on village traditions, they formed neighbourhood councils to get basic services. In 1979 the councils joined into one federation.

In Practice: Each council covers one neighbourhood, needs at least 200 members, and decides in open meetings that residents are expected to attend. Neighbours work together to lay pipes and build schools.

Since Then: Around 600 councils now belong to the federation. In 2003 it played a leading role in protests that forced Bolivia’s president to resign, and in 2005 it drove out a private water company. It remains a powerful political voice.

Context: In 2012, a trans activist started an archive to honour a friend who had collected photos of their community. Until then, trans lives in Argentina appeared mostly in police and morgue files.

In Practice: Trans women share old photos, letters and stories through a private Facebook group. A small team scans them in high quality, and the women tell their histories, including persecution under the dictatorship, in their own words.

Since Then: With over 25,000 items, it has been shown at museums and exhibitions including Madrid’s Reina Sofía and the São Paulo Biennial.

Context: In 1998, two computing experts saw scientists losing time to basic programming problems. They began with week-long courses at a US national lab, later replaced by two-day workshops.

In Practice: Trained volunteers teach the workshops unpaid, and hosts usually cover their travel. The community writes the lessons openly and tests new ones in real workshops before they become official.

Since Then: The lessons are free for anyone to use. Over 5,400 instructors have run more than 5,000 workshops in 72 countries, reaching nearly 100,000 learners since 2012, from CERN to all seven continents.

Context: Ecuador divided the southern Amazon into oil blocks to auction to companies, saying it had consulted the people living there in 2012. The Waorani of Pastaza said they had never been properly asked.

In Practice: Young Waorani learned to use GPS and mapping tools. Over several years, elders guided them through the forest to record hunting grounds, sacred sites and medicinal plants, using free software that works without internet.

Since Then: In 2019, Waorani communities took the government to court, using their maps as evidence. Judges ruled the consultation invalid, protecting around half a million acres from the auction. The ruling set a precedent for other Indigenous peoples.

Context: EU law lets you sell seed only of registered varieties, and registration tests demand uniform crops that many old varieties can’t pass. In 1990, Austrian gardeners formed a group to save them anyway.

In Practice: Its seed archive holds about 5,500 varieties. Around 150 volunteers grow rare crops in their own gardens, save the seed and share it through a catalogue and regular meetings.

Since Then: In 2013 the EU proposed seed rules that campaigners said would threaten traditional seed swapping. Over half a million people signed the group’s petition, and in 2014 the European Parliament rejected the proposal by an overwhelming majority.

Context: From the late 1800s, colonial rule pushed Black men into migrant labour on the mines. To avoid being buried far from family, workers formed societies to bring their dead home and share the costs.

In Practice: Members set the rules and pay a small monthly amount into a shared fund. When a death hits a member’s family, the group helps with money or goods. Most groups use no insurance company, so members carry the risk together.

Since Then: Burial societies remain South Africa’s most common savings group, with millions of members. Their strength is trust: members know each other, run the fund together and turn up for the grieving family.

Context: VimoSEWA insures informal women workers shut out of mainstream insurance. Informal workers have no employer, contract or regular wage, so no sick pay or pension. Started in 1992 by a women’s trade union, it became its own cooperative in 2009.

In Practice: Members buy one policy covering health, life and belongings. Local women are trained to sell it, explain it and help with claims. Partner insurance companies cover the payouts, and the cooperative’s profits go back to the women who own it.

Since Then: Since 2009, it has issued over a million policies and paid more than €2.4 million in claims to vendors and labourers. Claims are handled by people who answer to the members.

Context: When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, needs outpaced official help. Ukrainians scaled up volunteer networks first formed in 2014, when war broke out in the east, organising on Facebook, Instagram and Telegram.

In Practice: Someone posts what a family needs; others offer to deliver it or pay for it. Strangers coordinate through shared chats and mutual contacts, and volunteer drivers move the goods.

Since Then: Surveys show over 80% of Ukrainians have donated money, goods or time to the effort. Around a third have volunteered directly.

Context: In February 2020, Taiwan ran short of masks. A volunteer developer built a map where people reported which stores still had stock. It went viral so fast that the Google Maps bill reached about €18,000, which Google later waived.

In Practice: Prompted by the civic tech community, the government published pharmacies’ mask stock online, updated every 30 seconds. Volunteer coders used the data to build maps, chatbots and other tools.

Since Then: Over a hundred mask apps appeared within weeks. Many came from g0v (gov zero), a volunteer tech community that aims to “rethink government from zero” by making public information open and easy to use.

Context: In 2010, a small non-profit launched a paper voucher in Mombasa’s informal settlements, where people had goods and skills to trade but little cash. After several versions, it became Sarafu.

In Practice: Members receive Sarafu on basic phones (with no internet needed) in exchange for their services, and spend it with local traders. A small shilling reserve limits how much can be cashed out, so most of it keeps circulating locally.

Since Then: When Covid lockdowns cut off cash income in 2020, around 55,000 Kenyans traded roughly €2.3 million worth of Sarafu in 18 months, mostly within their own neighbourhoods. Women and local savings groups were at the heart of it.

Context: In 2009, the financial crisis left Sardinia’s small firms short of cash and bank loans. A group of young graduates from the village of Serramanna set up a business currency. They based it on Switzerland’s WIR system from 1934.

In Practice: Each firm starts at zero and can buy from other members on interest-free credit. Credits are valued at one euro each but can’t be bought or cashed in. Within a year, a firm must sell enough to members to clear its balance, or repay it in euros.

Since Then: Now called SardexPay, it links over 10,000 firms across Italy. One small cleaning firm near Cagliari does about 30% of its business through it. When a worker needed his car fixed, the owner advanced his pay in sardex.

Context: In 1973, a group of women in Osaka, many of them housewives, started what is often called the world’s first “time bank”. In the 1990s, a national foundation linked local elderly-care groups under one name, Fureai Kippu.

In Practice: Volunteers help older people with shopping, cooking or bathing; the group logs the hours. Those helped usually pay a small fee. Credits can be saved for old age or sent to a parent.

Since Then: By 2012 there were about 390 branches. Growth stalled after Japan launched public care insurance in 2000. The national foundation now supports neighbourhood mutual-help groups across Japan.

Context: In 2013, two supermarket groups controlled about 80% of Finland’s grocery sales, leaving small producers few other outlets. Farmers in the town of Jakobstad began selling directly to shoppers who had ordered online.

In Practice: Each REKO ring is a free Facebook group run mostly by volunteers. Producers post what they have, shoppers order in the comments, and everyone meets briefly at an agreed spot, often a car park, to hand over orders.

Since Then: By 2021 there were around 600 rings with 2 million members in 14 countries. In Finland, the rings’ own estimates suggest 4,000 producers sold €35 million of food through them in one year, with no shop taking a cut.

Context: In 1967, a cooperative member in Barquisimeto died and his family couldn’t afford the funeral. Ten local cooperatives responded by setting up a shared funeral service, and later added food markets, credit and health care.

In Practice: Workers rotate between jobs and mostly earn the same. Dozens of cooperatives and community groups make decisions together in open meetings, aiming for agreement rather than a vote, with no managers.

Since Then: Its weekly food markets serve around 40% of the city. The network paid for and built its own hospital, where surgery costs half the private price, and its clinics care for up to 250,000 people a year.

Context: In the early 1990s, Ghana let private companies buy cocoa from farmers. Farmers complained that many companies rigged their scales, so in 1993 a group of them set up their own cooperative buyer.

In Practice: Village groups elect their leaders and control their own scales. On cocoa sold as Fairtrade, the cooperative earns an extra payment, which members spend on bonuses, schools, wells and clinics.

Since Then: It has grown from about 2,000 farmers to over 100,000, about a third of them women. Its Fairtrade payments have paid for hundreds of wells for clean water, eight schools and mobile clinics serving over 200 remote villages.

Context: Care work in South Korea is often low-paid and insecure. In 2008, care workers from a government job scheme for low-income people started their own care centre in Seoul. In 2013 it became Korea’s first registered social cooperative.

In Practice: Every member gets one vote, however much they have invested. The rules require at least two-thirds of the board to be staff, and 11 of its 13 directors are employees.

Since Then: It has over 900 members, about two-thirds of them staff. In 2013 it became the first social business in Korea to run a public nursing home, and it now runs care centres, care homes and nurseries across Seoul.

Context: When the delivery app Take Eat Easy went bankrupt in 2016, many riders were left unpaid. In 2017, French activists and couriers built free delivery software that only cooperatives and non-profits may use.

In Practice: Local cooperatives employ their riders and use the shared app. Each pays 2% of its delivery income to a federation that employs the programmers and supports new cooperatives. Every cooperative gets one vote.

Since Then: Dozens of cooperatives in about a dozen countries now use the software, with riders on fixed wages. Since 2021, a drop-in centre in Paris has helped over 1,700 couriers with paperwork, language classes and legal help.

Context: Ethiopian banks usually ask for land or property as security when giving a loan, which small traders rarely have. Ekub fills the gap by letting people save and borrow together.

In Practice: Members agree verbally, without a contract, and pay a fixed amount each round. A draw usually decides who takes the pot, until everyone has had one turn and got back what they paid in. Early winners often need someone who promises to cover their payments if they stop.

Since Then: A national survey found 51% of Ethiopia’s informal business owners started their business with their own savings and Ekub. Apps now run digital Ekubs too, charging users a small fee for the service.

Context: British-era credit cooperatives had faded by the 1970s. Villagers began reviving them one community at a time, and in 1978 the societies joined into a national movement, SANASA. Each local society works like a small bank.

In Practice: Members save together, and their pooled savings are lent out to other members. Each village society runs itself but elects representatives to one of 29 district unions, which together form a national federation.

Since Then: Around a million Sri Lankans belong to over 8,000 societies, giving rural families a place to save and borrow. SANASA now reaches every province, including Tamil-majority areas, and has grown to include its own bank and insurance companies.

Context: In 1986, the French aid organisation CIDR helped villagers in Mali’s Dogon country set up their own savings and loan bank. Many members and managers had little or no schooling.

In Practice: Each village bank lends out members’ savings, and an elected board decides on loans. Once well established, banks can borrow extra money from Mali’s agricultural development bank. Neighbouring village banks join regional networks to share support and keep each other in check.

Since Then: By 2003, the model had spread across West Africa and to Cameroon and Madagascar, with about 220,000 members, mostly small farmers. It shows villagers can run a bank that serves their own community.

Context: Drought, famine and conflict have forced millions of Somalis from their homes. Over three million are displaced inside Somalia, and nearly a million live as refugees in neighbouring countries. In camps, many women use the traditional Ayuuto scheme to help each other financially.

In Practice: Small groups, often of around ten women, meet regularly and each pay an agreed fixed amount. Each round, the whole pot goes to a different member until everyone has had a turn. No one pays interest.

Since Then: The groups give women a place to support each other emotionally and act as a safety net for families. Somalis abroad use Ayuuto too, helping to create communities in new places.

Context: A Dutch journalist writing about waste-related issues saw repair as a solution. In October 2009 she held the first Repair Café in a theatre in Amsterdam. It was packed, with visitors coming from outside the city.

In Practice: Anyone can bring a broken item, from clothes to bikes, and fix it for free alongside a skilled volunteer, using the tools provided. Any local group can start its own Repair Café with help from a Dutch foundation.

Since Then: Over 3,800 Repair Cafés now run worldwide. In 2024, the 215 cafés that kept records logged over 37,000 repairs, most often vacuum cleaners, coffee makers and trousers. 62% were fixed.

Context: In 2009, staff at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, together with farmers’ groups, set up a cooperative to buy food straight from small farmers, without supermarkets or costly organic certificates in between.

In Practice: Volunteers run a small campus shop, open for short shifts most days, selling food from small farmers’ cooperatives. A small extra charge of 13–16% covers running costs, and the charge is lower on basics like lentils. Instead of paying for certificates, members and farmers check farming methods together.

Since Then: It is run by volunteers, with a part-time accountant as its only paid staff, and serves hundreds of members and customers. Its shop doubles as a meeting place for shoppers and growers.

Context: Chile’s common pots date back at least to the Great Depression. They spread across poor neighbourhoods during the economic crisis of the 1980s, under military rule, when jobs disappeared and many families went hungry.

In Practice: Small groups of about eight neighbours, mostly women, run each pot. They collect food and money from neighbours, local councils, charities and churches, cook the food, and share meals with families in need.

Since Then: Common pots returned during Chile’s 2019 protests over inequality, then multiplied with Covid. By mid-2020 the Santiago region had 881 common pots. Without steady support, many soon closed: a year later, only about a third were still running.

Context: In 1941, with many fathers away at war, Wellington mothers opened a playgroup in a church hall, run by a trained supervisor and a roster of mothers. From 1951, parents could train in child development themselves.

In Practice: Parents run sessions on a roster, usually one adult to every three to five children, and share the money, admin and upkeep. They make decisions together, and training is free.

Since Then: Around 400 centres now belong to one national charity, but local families still run each one. Funded mainly by the government, Playcentre remains one of New Zealand’s most affordable early learning options.

Context: In 1993, indebted farmers in Jalisco started protesting against the banks. When the peso lost half its value in late 1994, interest rates soared and many loans became unpayable. Small business owners and families joined, and the movement spread nationwide.

In Practice: Local groups across the country offer members legal advice, help them negotiate with banks and organise protests. Many members paid what they considered fair into court-supervised accounts instead of paying the bank.

Since Then: By the mid-1990s it claimed half a million members or more. Its pressure helped push the government into debt relief programmes. Local groups remain active, joining farmers’ protests in Zacatecas in 2025.

Context: In 2007, free defence lawyers in the South Bronx started a fund for poor people charged with minor offences. Many sat in jail for weeks simply because they couldn’t pay bail, often just a few hundred dollars.

In Practice: The fund pays bail of up to $2,000 so clients can go home and fight their case. When the case ends, the court returns the money, which then frees the next person.

Since Then: Over 95% of clients came to every court date. In 2009 a judge ruled the fund needed a bail licence, so it paused. A 2012 state law allowed charity bail funds for minor charges, and in 2017 the model went national as the Bail Project.

Context: In Sierra Leone, more than half of people in prison have not been convicted of any crime. Most can’t afford bail or a lawyer, and courts are slow and work in English, which many don’t speak. In 2003, a Sierra Leonean lawyer and an American colleague started Timap, meaning “stand up” in Krio.

In Practice: Funded by donors, Timap pays local people trained in law and mediation to help others for free. These paralegals settle land disputes, challenge unlawful detentions at police stations and pass serious cases to lawyers.

Since Then: Its work helped shape Sierra Leone’s 2012 Legal Aid Act, which recognises paralegals as justice workers. The law promises one in every chiefdom, a local area led by a traditional chief, but so far well under half have one.

Context: In 1981, Catholic nuns in Melbourne lent their own money to people on low incomes who were shut out of banks. Advisers warned the loans would never be repaid.

In Practice: Borrowers never get cash; the loan goes straight to the shop or service provider. There’s no interest, no fees and no credit check. Instead, a local worker helps them work out what they can afford to repay.

Since Then: A national bank now provides the loan money interest-free, and the government pays the running costs. Over 170 community groups made 36,000 loans in a recent year, and over 95% are repaid. A study found it helps people avoid payday lenders.