Community Based Savings Groups (CBSG)

There are an estimated 2.5 billion unbanked adults worldwide many of whom may be unable to read or write. This means that they are too poor to access credit from banks and other institutions. how then are they expected to take the first step on the economic ladder and work themselves out of poverty?

Our community based savings programme supports individuals to come together to form a group. the group must elect a leadership board to manage the group. The group write their own governance rules and agree to make regular savings which after a suitable amount of time can be loaned to members within the group for a set period of time for an agreed rate of interest. When loans are repaid they are added to the next level of savings and reissued to support new projects. At a point in time the savings together with the interest they have accrued are shared within the group.

LTT’s role with the groups is to provide the training to support the groups establish themselves and to then be available to each group to offer guidance and support.

 CBSG training has been completed with the all the farmers groups in Singe and Malangi Wards and with community groups in Sawe and Waangwaray.

The latest group is the SAFINA group based in the Gendi sub-village with 19 farmers. The group issued their first round of loans to members in May 2020.

The UMOJA Singe group, who completed their CBSG training and formed their group a year earlier have now graduated from LTT support, effectively running and managing their savings group independently. This is a huge achievement for the members who value the group and who are now able to access loans from within the group at a higher value than those originally offered by LTT in a previous programme. We will continue to monitor the group and provide mentoring as needed as they move towards their end of cycle share out in 2021.