Social Capital in Guinean Women's Cooperative Financial Groups: Examining Trust Networks

Background and Purpose: Guinean women’s social and savings groups, called seres, are a widespread social structure popular in the capital city of Conakry. These groups start small, often beginning with just two or three members, and grow in size and scope over time. One function of the sere is to house a Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA), which supports members’ savings goals outside of a formal financial institution. Additionally, seres often transform into formalized organizations that then seek financing for larger projects through microfinance institutions. Little research has been done with this population, and this study aims to deepen the knowledge around how members of seres are able to begin with minimal resources, both financial and social, and build functional financial groups over time which are able to set and reach shared objectives. Social capital has been identified as a necessary resource to support the construction of cooperative groups like seres, and trust is accepted as a vital component of social capital networks. In order to better understand how Guinean women are able to build functional groups, this study asks “How is trust structured in Guinean women’s groups?”

Methods: A six question social network survey was created by modifying the World Bank’s six domain model of social capital, with “trust” as one of the domains. The survey was administered to each of the 72 members of four informal women’s social and savings groups in April and May of 2016. Networks were bounded via the list of active group members kept by a Treasurer. Sociometric networks were created for the trust data of each of these groups. Descriptive network characteristics were obtained for this whole group data, which provided new knowledge about the nature of trust as a component of social capital in this population.

Results: The structure of the trust networks was characterized by three specific aspects. First, the graphs for groups 1, 3, & 4 show a network that is divided into large components which are bridged by relationships between two nodes. These two nodes correspond to participants who occupy leadership positions within the group and who are among the original members of the organization. This relationship, a potential cutpoint for the group, joins the two sides of the trust network.  A second characteristic of these networks are the existence of reciprocal dyads, separate from the main component of the graph. Third, these directed networks are again characterized overall by a flow from the periphery to the core of the group.

Conclusions and Implications: This study provides new knowledge about the flow of trust as a component of social capital in Guinean women’s social and savings groups. Understanding how Guinean women are able to build resilient social networks characterized by thick trust increases social work’s awareness of alternate methods for community building, especially in the absence of outside resources to support this goal. This knowledge can then inform social work interventions aimed at building social capital in communities.