PROJECT INTRODUCTION
In Ghana, there is high rate of unemployment and even those who attempt to own and manage small businesses have limited access to financial facilities to start. Many Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), Rural Banks and other lenders are traditionally reluctant to finance smallholder businesses as they are perceived as a high-risk sector.
When dealing with a dynamic group of people with extremely low level of income, it is very important to consider interventions that will directly support livelihood changes before other long term interventions. Organizing and building the financial literacy, record-keeping and savings culture of the small holder businesses or farmers is the way to go.
An Entrepreneurship Savings and Loan Group is a group of 15-25 people who save together and take small loans from those savings. The activities of the Association run in cycles of a year after which the accumulated savings and the loan profits are shared out among the members according to their savings.
PROJECT IN PICTURES
The scheme (ESLG) is aimed at providing members with opportunities to save and invest more in their businesses and also into other additional livelihoods outside their usual businesses. It empowers them to improve the nutrition and wellbeing of their children, and keep them in school throughout. Because the project was partnership oriented involving Global Women Development Promoters (GLOWDEP) as the Trainer, the Ghana Poultry Project (GPP), United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) as Sponsors, Apex Body of Women in Poultry Value Chain (WIPVaC-Apex) as the Implementer, it thus aimed at achieving SDGs 3, 4, 5 and 17.
It is a member-managed group in that although members are trained by experts, the operation and management of the funds accumulated are solely done by the group members.
The objective of the scheme is to encourage the habit of savings and also to provide some form of capital to invest more in their businesses and also into other additional livelihoods outside their usual businesses.