Africa Lead Grantees Promote Key Initiatives in Informal Financial Services, Policy Advocacy, and Agribusiness Incubator

With support from Africa Lead, the Savanna Integrated Rural Development Aid (SIRDA) is working with Village Saving Loans Associations (VSLA) groups in the Northern Region of Ghana. The VSLA is a successful microfinance savings model under which community women’s groups are formed to make contributions to a joint savings process. The leaders of the groups have been trained in areas such as basic accounting, bookkeeping, and leadership principles.

 

The Village Saving Loans Association leaders organizing members’ savings book.

The women were also trained on group dynamics and on the VSLA methodology to enable them to self-manage the group, ensure a thorough understanding of the models’ operating principles, and start the savings and loan activities with understanding of the models’ operating principles.  SIRDA Activities

The Business and Development Consultancy Centre (BADECC), host organization for the Agricultural Advisory Services Network (AASN), aims to ensure that agricultural advisory service delivery is made accessible to resource-poor farmers and organizations in the agricultural sector through capacity building and dissemination of strategic information.

Through a grant, Africa Lead is supporting BADECC to improve its capacity to engage and report effectively on NSA contributions to policy systems changes. BADECC launched a new website that will increase the networks’ visibility and create a knowledge-sharing platform where members can access information to support evidence-based policy advocacy and policy engagement campaigns.

To enhance the AASN’s communications strategy, BADECC also produced a policy research video documentary titled, “Research on Impact Assessment of Government Policies on Agricultural Extension Services in Ghana”. This documentary highlights farmers’ and other non-state actors’ recommendations on policy options to improve extension service delivery and the agriculture sector. The target audience of this production is elected officials.

The African Youth in Agricultural Transformation Network (AYNAT), another grantee, officially launched the Growing Sustainable Horticulture (GrowS-Hort) Incubator. The launch served as a platform to raise awareness about startup business opportunities in agriculture and to educate the public about a new business promotion model that is still relatively unknown in Ghana.

Official launching of GrowS-Hort

AYNAT invited government officials, representatives from Youth Employment Agency, students, recent graduates, the private sector, and the media to participate in the launch. This event also provided a networking opportunity for incubatees to meet and exchange ideas with business owners, the head of the Agribusiness Unit at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and other like-minded youth who are considering agribusiness ventures.  See more photos…

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