Rural women raised twenty-two million GHC through VSLA

Rural women in Northern Ghana have raised twenty-two million Ghana in the last four years through the Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA). 

The amount constitutes savings from three thousand Village and Loans Associations (VSLAs) spread across Northern Ghana. 

The Northern Regional Director of Community Development, Willams Alagma disclosed this during the second VSLA summit in Tamale on Thursday. 

The summit, organized by the USAID-RING was under the theme: “Building Resilient VSLAs in Ghana through Effective Training and Collaboration beyond Projects.” 

According to Mr. Alagma, the success chalked by women in Northern Ghana is a clear indication of the potential of rural folk particularly women to lift themselves out of poverty. 

“The potential in mobilizing our poor women and men in this region is very enormous. These are the poorest of the poor, if they can raise twenty two million Ghana Cedis, it means if we can expand this to more communities and populations we will not need the USAID, IMF or the World Bank, and we will not indebt our children,” he emphasized. 

Nearly fifteen million of twenty two million Ghana Cedis was raised under the USAID-RING project. 

VSLA under the RING project has nearly seventy eight thousand beneficiaries spread across seventeen Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies in Northern Ghana. 

The Chief of Party for the Resiliency in Northern Ghana (RING) project, Yunus Abdulai in his remarks explained that, the RING VSLA project is making significant impact in the lives of rural women. 

“Some women have started small shops and businesses in their communities, they are able to pay their children’s school fees and therefore are able to keep their children in school. 

They are also able to take care of their healthcare needs and above all the project is teaching these women that it is possible,” he stated. 

The RING-VSLA project was launched in 2014 to support poor communities in Northern Ghana in the area of “agriculture, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) activities to build resiliency and increase the nutritional status of most vulnerable households.”  

The USAIDs project ends in 2019 and efforts are underway to find strategies to ensure the resiliency of VSLAs beyond the project. 

The 2018 summit therefore focused on sharing ideas and strategies to support the associations for sustainability.

Story by GBC's Murtala Issah 

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