After completing his higher education in Tunisia, Alou decided to return to Mali to work as a technical advisor in an integrated development program initiated by an inter-village development association set up by Malian nationals living in France. It was here that he came up with the idea of developing a micro-credit program to supplement the subsidies received by the association, and enable commercial project holders to benefit from credit on the basis of a village solidarity guarantee.

Two years later, in 1996, on the strength of this experience and a series of training courses (in microfinance and banking) in Mali, Niger and France, Alou launched the idea of the Support for Savings and Credit Systems in the Kayes Circle (PASECA) program, which came into being in 1998 thanks to funding from the French Development Agency (AFD).

The many successes of PASECA, which today boasts 1,830 members, not only enabled it to benefit from new AFD funding, but also to launch the Centre d’Appui à la Microfinance et au Développement (CAMIDE) in 2002 to promote microfinance and contribute to local and regional development. Since then, CAMIDE has been providing technical services in two areas: microfinance (support for the establishment of self-managed village savings and loan networks) and support for grassroots initiatives in the context of local development.