Paper short abstract:

The panel intends to discuss the practice of mutual aid. In rural areas these practices are established based on labor exchange. In urban areas, the need for capital has created new forms of assistance. These practices have become the main form of survival of women and their families.

Paper long abstract:

Analyzing African space, are found numerous cases where communities have developed social and economic initiatives based on mutual aid practices. These systems of mutual aid, trained in family networks, churches, markets or among neighbors who do not work in isolation, but conversely, have become the main mechanisms of survival of women and their families.

In rural areas, the practice of mutual aid are established primarily based on the exchange of labor, for example, practices Djunta mon (working together), kaza Laja (Add in the concrete slab of a house) in Cape Verde. In some cases, women are organized according to age groups Mandjuandadi example in Guinea-Bissau. In urban areas, the need for capital to access services and purchase goods created new forms of mutual support, mutual adapting original practices to include monetary items, for pragmatic reasons.

Due to the difficulty of vulnerable populations in savings or provide access to formal credit, revolving credit groups, as Abota, Kixikila, Xitique are the most common practices of mutual aid. These practices are the main way of responding to situations of risk and even to allow an accumulation of basic capital.

Up to this point the practice of mutual aid can really develop and sustain a positive change vulnerability of these groups? Not only in the economic sphere, but also in the social sphere?

This panel intends to discuss the practice of mutual aid, especially those used by African women in space, without disregarding the cases of different spaces