Nigeria: Savings Groups Financial Linkages and Digitization Training

Course Description

Savings Groups (SGs) are community-based, self-managed groups, in which members mobilize and manage their own savings, investing this money in a loan fund from which they can bor-row in amounts as small as $5. This approach is proving to be low cost, highly sustainable, and extremely profitable for the member-owners and achieving significant scale, especially in re-mote rural areas. It is estimated that SGs are now established in more than 75 countries world-wide, reaching more than 12 million members in over 600,000 groups.

It is becoming generally accepted that un-conventional microfinance approaches like Savings Groups (SGs) are best suited to reach the majority of the rural poor (particularly in Africa) with a suite of appropriate financial services. SGs can operate profitably in the most remote areas; are immediately sustainable and provide high average returns on savings as well as flexible, convenient and accessible loans. Their self-management and self-capitalizing capabilities pro-vide them with decisive cost advantages compared to more conventional approaches that de-pend on the creation and survival of formal institutions.

However, SGs are becoming increasingly over capitalized and require linkages to formal finan-cial institutions. This calls for a more strategic engagement with relevant formal financial insti-tutions in terms of products development, service provision (channels) and digitizing opera-tions. This course is designed to achieve specific objectives and learning outcomes as below:

Learning Objectives

• Expose participants to the methodological approaches and training tools employed by the major implementing organizations

• Guiding financial inclusion practitioners through a focused roadmap of financial capability, addressing customer needs, technology-enabled business models and client protection to effectively improve lives and boost economies

• Introduce participants to the concept and framework of SG linkages

• Introduce participants to digitizing of VSLAs concepts (digitizing records and cash box)

Learning Outcomes

• Improve your savings groups programs by learning about sound practices and innovations in community-based approaches to microfinance and financial linkages around the world.

• Build practical skills in designing and managing context-appropriate community develop-ment programs; access tools and training material for planning and implementation in the con-text of financial graduation.

• Gain in-depth understanding on subjects such as product design, governance, networking and partnership development leading to financial linkages between community-managed mi-crofinance and financial service providers such as banks, MFIs and micro-insurance providers.

• Learn with global sector leaders, fellow practitioners, and experienced facilitators.

• Understand and apply a Do-No-Harm approach to savings groups linkages by understand-ing consumer protection principles.

Organizational benefits

• Strengthen program design and management capacity in community-managed micro-finance and financial linkages approaches that reach remote rural populations and underserved urban/peri-urban low-income/high-density communities.

•Increase program outreach and impact by linking informal community groups with formal financial institutions and other market actors.

• Strengthen capacity to analyze policy issues and influence financial inclusion agenda.

• Positioned to develop policies and procedures that lead to sustainable and profitable finan-cial linkages between SGs and Financial Services Providers (e.g. Banks, MFIs, micro-insurance etc.)

•NGOs and other development actors can better articulate financial linkages approaches and benefits to potential partners and donor institutions.

Target Audience

Ideal for medium to senior level professionals in NGOs promoting financial inclusion, Financial Institutions (Banks, MFIs, Cooperatives/Credit Unions and Insurance Companies), Rural Fi-nance practitioners, government agencies, trainers, and donors promoting community-managed microfinance approaches. Two years' experience in financial inclusion sector and community-managed microfinance will be beneficial during classroom engagement.

Send application to: contact@mefiassociates.net