Widows, Single Mothers, and Financial Exclusion: CGSL Participation Barriers Among the Most Vulnerable Women in Post-Conflict South Sudan

This article examines whether Community Group Saving and Lending (CGSL) mechanisms are sufficiently inclusive for widows, single mothers and other highly vulnerable women in post-conflict South Sudan. The article is derived from a wider mixed-methods study of CGSL mechanisms and rural agricultural development in Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei and Lakes States, where CGSLs emerged as self-managed community financial institutions in response to the absence of formal rural credit. The original study used questionnaire data and interviews to examine savings mobilisation, lending mechanisms, agricultural investment and rural productivity. This article narrows that evidence through a gendered financial-exclusion lens. It asks how contribution requirements, meeting practices, social trust, financial literacy, credit rationing and household vulnerability may prevent the poorest women from joining, borrowing from, or benefiting fully from CGSLs. The survey recorded 81 valid responses from three states, including 25 women, and reported strong evidence that CGSLs are valued as alternatives for the poor, with 53% of valid respondents being group members. However, the same evidence also shows structural barriers: women were under-represented in the sample, 36% of respondents had never attended school, 47% were not CGSL members, scarcity of working capital received a very high mean score of 4.68, and institutional reluctance to serve rural areas remained important. The statistical tests in the parent study showed that CGSL participation was significantly associated with agricultural productivity (χ² = 15.92, p = 0.0001) and that access to credit significantly predicted technology investment (β = 1.9459, p = 0.026). The article argues that these positive results should not be read as proof of equal inclusion. Without flexible savings schedules, emergency windows, care-aware meeting arrangements, safeguarding, and targeted financial literacy, CGSLs may reproduce exclusion among widows and single mothers even while improving aggregate rural finance outcomes. The article contributes an inclusion-funnel model and a six-part CGSL redesign package for vulnerable women in post-conflict settings.