Institutional development · Student experience, equity and outcomes · Ghana
Ghana's KNUST and Canadian NGO Socodevi start three-day course on village savings groups
A Ghanaian university and a Canadian NGO have begun a short practical course teaching students, researchers and development workers how to set up and run community savings and credit groups.
Why it matters: Students, researchers and development workers enrolled in the course are being trained to form and run community savings and credit groups.
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), based in Kumasi, Ghana, has partnered with Socodevi, a non-governmental organisation from Canada, on a three-day course teaching people to form and run village savings and loans associations (VSLAs), the university said.
The university said participants include students, researchers and development practitioners, among others, and that the course is hands-on and aims to widen financial inclusion locally.
Dr Bernard Archibald Senyo Agyemang, a KNUST agricultural economics lecturer, said such associations could serve farmers and other residents who have little access to banks.
He argued that problems with getting loans repaid, and the remoteness of some communities from banks, make credit harder to obtain.
Editor’s view
Rachel Smith, Students and International Editor
Those attending the KNUST–Socodevi course, students among them, are being taught to run savings associations that the KNUST lecturer said could let community members save regularly and draw on funds for health costs and business needs.
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