Microfinance companies tasked to enhance financial inclusion
A two-day workshop for microfinance institutions has been held in Accra with a call on them to enhance financial inclusion for the poor, especially in the rural areas.
The Programmes Manager of Concern Universal (CU), a UK international development organisation, Mr Confidence Abotsi, said deliveries of financial services to the disadvantaged in society would encourage the savings habit of the poor and promote a holistic development in Ghana and Africa as a whole.
Concern Universal aims at tackling poverty from the grass roots, working with people across all levels in the society.
Established in 1976, CU started its operation in Ghana in 1999, and currently operates in more than five of the 10 regions of the country, including, Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Brong Ahafo, Eastern and Volta.
It focuses on three main strategic areas, livelihoods, food and security, community-based microfinance and participatory governance.
The programme was organised by CU in partnership with the Afram Plains Development Organisation (APDO) with funding from the African Caribbean Pacific-European Union (ACP-EU) Microfinance programme.
Banking for the Poor (B4P)
In a PowerPoint presentation, Mr Abotsi said the CU as an organisation, had adopted mechanisms such as Banking for the Poor (B4P) as an intervention designed to bring financial services closer to the excluded, mostly the rural poor.
According to him, people in the rural areas usually wanted to save but they used the least efficient methods which made it difficult to yield productive results.
He, therefore, suggested that microfinance institutions in the country should endeavour to form and train community savings and credit associations (CSCA) in the rural areas to meet the needs and demands of the people.
He added that there was the need for the formation of district level federations (DLFs) and community agents (CAs) by the institutions, noting those had been some of the key areas of CU’s focus for the achievement of its goals and objectives.
“Farming enterprise management training for smallholder farmers must be encouraged to help farmers with budgeting and financial records skills to effectively assess the performance of their farming businesses,” Mr Abotsi said.
Available statistics
Earlier in her welcome address, the Country Director of CU, Ms Juliette Lampoh, said available information suggested that only 29 per cent of the adult population in Ghana had an account with a formal financial institution, while as many as 44 per cent of the adult population had no access, whether formal or informal to financial services.
For his part, the Head of EU Delegation to Ghana, Mr William Hanna, said the efforts of microfinance institutions were key to the growth and development of a country’s national economy and that Ghana was no exception.
It was for that reason that he said, the EU was doing its best to complement the efforts of the institutions in the country, and added that “with nearly £450 million committed to the ongoing projects related to micro and small enterprise finance, the EU is a major financial backer of financial inclusion worldwide.”