Women's empowerment has long been a central feature of the partnership between IFAD and the Government of India. Key instruments for supporting women's empowerment has self help groups, whereby 10-20 rural women from the same village, mostly poor women, come together to contribute two-weekly or monthly dues as savings and provide group loans to their members. The self help group approach was not created by IFAD-supported operations, but IFAD has contributed to the mainstreaming of this approach in India.