Building strategies

This strategic hub meeting sought to find ways to make the federations and their savings activities more sustainable. It was also an occasion to provide support to the newly founded Botswana federation, which held its first official forum with the government later that week.

Group discussions

In three groups, federation members discussed their challenges around savings schemes and strategies to overcome these. They also collected ideas on how to make the Urban Poor Funds more successful and sustainable, and on how to increase the visibility of the southern African hub. Check out the lively discussion between federation members:

Challenges around savings

Challenges the groups discovered included increasing the transparency of the savings schemes, reducing mistrust among saving members, improving the understanding of the functioning and benefits of savings groups and the Urban Poor Fund, communicating the purpose of saving, enabling the poorest members to participate and fostering long-term commitment on part of the federation members.

Strategies

The groups came up with strategies to deal with these challenges, such as providing upfront and improving continuous information on the savings schemes and the Urban Poor Fund through training and exchange, decentralizing the Urban Poor Fund to increase trust and transparency, setting rewards and incentives for saving, and creating income-generating activities and loan groups to support the poorest members.

Check out Kenny´s statement on how the hub meeting will benefit her savings group:

Looking ahead

Day 2 of the hub meeting started with a discussion on upcoming exchange visits, and a reflection on the federations´ partnerships with governments. Besides from providing an update on the federations´ experiences, this served as a preparation for the Botswana federation´s first National Forum with government officials, taking place the next day.

NGOs consult

One afternoon the community and professional representatives held separate meetings. Members of the federations´ support NGOs and the SDI Secretariat reflected on strategies for improving documentation and advocacy, supporting federations to document their own work, and for attracting resources for federations through enhanced visibility to donors, government and the public. The support NGO staff members were taught to use new web tools for producing online multimedia content and linking these to profiling and enumeration data.

Supporting our new member on board

The rest of the day was used to develop strategies to increase the success and impact of the Botswana National Forum. The federations reminded themselves of the importance to highlight the potential of savings schemes and community-led enumerations as tools for poverty eradication as opposed to conventional government approaches. They were also urged to be clear about their expectations from government and the forum. The members mapped out the government ministries and councils that would be attending the forum and how to strategically approach each.

Reflections on the hub meeting

At the end of the hub meeting, the federation members were satisfied with the achievements and the learning outcomes of the meeting. The next regional hub meeting will take place in South Africa.

Check out Alexander from the Namibian federation in the video to hear his impressions of the hub meeting: