This project as launched by the Council of Anglican Churches of Africa to strengthen savings groups operations aims at conducting a roll out implementation of a project that was launched in September 2020. The Council contracted a Consultancy firm; Just I.T. Solutions and Consultancy that was tasked to conduct a baseline survey for profiling of the groups, develop an MIS system for profiling, establish the gaps in the groups for capacity building and scale up the groups to the next level. The project was to be conducted in the five countries in Africa with an aim of establishing critical strategy for survival of the groups amidst poverty, inequality and financial inclusion, consequently helping low-income communities to drive out poverty and make their savings to earn out a living. This project proposal therefore seeks to establish a funding to facilitate the roll out operations in Strengthening Saving Groups Operations done in the five countries. The roll out will be done using both the quantitative data from individual survey and qualitative data from focus group obtained through the baseline survey. The project is guided by the World transformative agenda Envision 2030; The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which targets to eradicate extreme poverty and all its forms for all people everywhere, ending hunger, and achieve food security and improve nutrition by promoting sustainable agriculture and ensuring healthy lives and promoting well being for all at all ages, [Goal 1, Goal 2 and Goal 3]. The project aims at promoting innovative management information systems for progress tracking of the groups entrepreneurship activities among beneficiaries in 5 countries in Africa: Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Ghana and Burundi. The Baseline survey was conducted in the pilot country using an online tool. The process involved planning, designing, establishing and evaluating and analyzing the data to enhance detailed profiling of the VSLA/MFI/Saccos in order to establish the gaps for Capacity building and devising the best methods for a scale up strategy to enhance the sustainability of the groups. Informed by the Baseline Survey, a Management Information System (MIS) was developed. The biggest challenge that we seek to address was the data capturing in the MIS for processing, Interpretation and groups profiling. The initial project was conducted in the era of COVID-19 pandemic in all the pilot countries where social distance rules and regulations, total lockdown and no-gatherings rules were introduced to contain the virus.
