The importance of ownership II
Citation
CTA. 2001. The importance of ownership II. Rural Radio Resource Pack 01/3. Wageningen, The Netherlands: CTA.
Permanent link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10568/57363
Abstract/Description
Our second report comes from The Gambia, where Ismaila Senghore spoke to Fatou Sarr, a training officer at the Promotion Centre of the Village Indigenous Savings and Credit Associations, commonly called VISACAs. He discovered that the associations had a strong sense of ownership, not least because all the staff in the credit offices were recruited in the villages.
Notes
The importance of ownership
Cue:
Ownership has in recent years become a key feature of most development programmes. Too often in the past projects failed because all the ideas, resources and staff were supplied by an outside agency, and the capabilities of local people were ignored. In supplying credit to poor communities, it is frequently observed that when those people are themselves the source of funds and managers of the scheme, there is greater commitment to making the programme work, and greater sustainability once external support ends.
The following two reports come from Zimbabwe and The Gambia, and focus on schemes which have been largely funded by local contributions.
Our second report comes from The Gambia, where Ismaila Senghore spoke to Fatou Sarr, a training officer at the Promotion Centre of the Village Indigenous Savings and Credit Associations, commonly called VISACAs. He discovered that the associations had a strong sense of ownership, not least because all the staff in the credit offices were recruited in the villages.
IN: ?The belief we have is?
OUT: ?don?t pay the project will fail.?
DUR?N 1?46?
BACK ANNOUNCEMENT:
Fatou Sarr, training officer for the Village Indigenous Savings and Credit Associations in The Gambia, on why that particular scheme is succeeding where other credit schemes have failed.
Second Interview
Sarr The belief we have is to have all the staff working for the VISACAS to be at the village, so that at the end it can be sustainable because everybody is from the village. But for other projects that have failed the problem is most of their staff were brought in the village and at the end of the project if they don?t receive salaries anymore everything fails.
Senghore Fatou, you have just highlighted the reason why you are making success where others have failed. Basically the fact that staff attrition is high, when people are not stationed in the village and incorporated within the system. Now what is the kind of loan policy that you promote?
Sarr For us all our loans policies are defined by the villagers themselves, because what we normally do is we give them the guidelines of how to operate the VISACAS. But all the internal regulations of the VISACAS are designed by the villagers themselves.
Senghore Now you are targeting the poor. Are poor people good re-payers of loans?
Sarr Yes because most of our VISACAS now we have 100% repayment because people in the village they have seen these VISACAS as their own. Because all the VISACAS are managed by the villagers themselves. The funds that are given as loans are from the villagers so they are seeing everything as theirs. So most of the credit schemes before failed because the villagers believed that the money is coming from the government or it is coming from other people but they have the belief with VISACAS that the money that is given out as loans is theirs. So they have to pay back. If they don?t pay the project will fail. End of tape.