By Steve Chirombo

Dedza, January 25, Mana: Dedza District Council Community Development Officer, Thanira Gondwe, has commended partners who were implementing a two-year Financial Access for Rural Markets, Smallholders and Enterprise (FARMSE) programme for positively uplifting lives of some communities in the district.

Among other things, the Implementing Partners (IPs) implemented several programmes under Community-Based Financial Support, thereby promoting Village Saving Loans groups and other forms of community-based financial organizations.

The programme also had a third component under innovative outreach activity where FARMSE reached out to formal financial institutions through agency banking and linkage of the financial institutions to the Community Based Financial Organizations (CBFOs) and other rural inhabitants where they would not normally reach in their normal business.

Gondwe said on Friday, at the end of the review meeting with the district IPs, that the session was a wake-up call to what’s happening on the ground.

“And looking at what they have presented; it clearly shows that they have done a lot of work on the ground about VSL groups.

“The most important thing that I have also seen is that these people have been on the ground capacitating the groups on the savings and also telling them the importance of starting small businesses, which would help assist the communities in developing economically,” said Gondwe.

According to Gondwe, the savings and how much the members shared by the end of the year demonstrated that people’s livelihoods have significantly changed.

“You know these people are complementing the government’s efforts. Of course, we are already doing it but then they came in with more resources which made us reach out to more groups. We will continue to encourage the beneficiaries to work on those groups and also to continue doing the small-scale businesses because a lot of them have benefited from the initiative,” he pointed out.

On his part, Brown Phulusa, FARMSE District Coordinating Officer, said he is impressed with the outcome of the review meeting.

“Looking at all activities I am impressed because when you look at a sampled number of households under ultra-poor graduation most of them have moved within a short period having received their seed money and currently most of them have three times what they got.

“Their livelihoods have changed.  They have got a lot of productive assets. So, I would say by combining seed capital with technical expertise many lives would change,” indicated Phulusa.

According to Phulusa, the three major operative components of the programme have greatly improved the lives of the targeted communities, citing numerous savings and shares under the CBFOs' support, the ultra-poor graduations, and the placement of agents either under FDH or NBS in every corner of the district under the innovative component, where people are no longer travelling long distances to get banking services as expected by the programme.

“It is impressive to see communities having a lot of productive assets which have seen their lives greatly improved and this has also brought in some capacity building where they are producing more in the agriculture sector ensuring their food and nutrition capacity,” said Phulusa.

Some of the partners who participated in implementing the programme include the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC), Action Aid Malawi, FINCOOP, FDH, and NBS banks.

FARMSE is a government of Malawi programme housed under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs.

It is being implemented in all 28 districts through some NGOs, private implementing partners and departments as well as agencies.