Saccos: Loan and Cooperative Financial Institutions
THE STATUS OF RUSACCOs IN ETHIOPIA
Presented to EACRAT Workshop held on 22 – 24 July 2008
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Presented by Berhane Kidanu
Federal Cooperative Agency
Background
A comprehensive and structured assessment or study is not made to know the clear picture of RUSACCOs in the country. But as a practitioner and being engaged in the promotion of RUSACCOs, ideas, which help as a point of discussion can be forwarded based on the available data’s (not inclusive and complete).
In-spite of the importance of the sector (RUSACCOs) to create financial access to reach deep the rural poor and participate all sections of the society members, attention was denied during the previous times. It is recently that the promotion of RUSACCOs has been started on a pilot basis by VOCA-Ethiopia in collaboration with RCPBs. This program was confined to agricultural high potential areas covering a limited geographical area in four major regions. Accordingly they have successes to establish around 50 RUSACCOs in these regions with a limited (very few) membership size not exceeding 40-50 members in each RUSACCO.
It is with the launching of RUFIP that the promotion of RUSACCOs has been considered as the integral part of the cooperative promotion activity by RCPBs in developing cooperative financial institutions in the rural areas. Consequently RUSACCOs has flourished in all corners of the country with hopes to build member owned sustainable financial institutions and create financial access to rural poor by contributing towards poverty alleviation.
Currently (based on the PY4 report) there are 1961 RUSACCOs and 20 RUSACCO Unions operating in the country. These RUSACCOs have a membership size of 142,697 out of which 73,581 are male and 69116 female. These RUSACCOs has managed to mobilize savings amounting ETB 21.3 million and with a total capital of ETB 18.5 million. The RUSACCOs has disbursed a loan to their members amounting ETB 20.9 million during PY4. As
Presented to EACRAT Workshop held on 22 – 24 July 2008
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Presented by Berhane Kidanu
Federal Cooperative Agency
Background
A comprehensive and structured assessment or study is not made to know the clear picture of RUSACCOs in the country. But as a practitioner and being engaged in the promotion of RUSACCOs, ideas, which help as a point of discussion can be forwarded based on the available data’s (not inclusive and complete).
In-spite of the importance of the sector (RUSACCOs) to create financial access to reach deep the rural poor and participate all sections of the society members, attention was denied during the previous times. It is recently that the promotion of RUSACCOs has been started on a pilot basis by VOCA-Ethiopia in collaboration with RCPBs. This program was confined to agricultural high potential areas covering a limited geographical area in four major regions. Accordingly they have successes to establish around 50 RUSACCOs in these regions with a limited (very few) membership size not exceeding 40-50 members in each RUSACCO.
It is with the launching of RUFIP that the promotion of RUSACCOs has been considered as the integral part of the cooperative promotion activity by RCPBs in developing cooperative financial institutions in the rural areas. Consequently RUSACCOs has flourished in all corners of the country with hopes to build member owned sustainable financial institutions and create financial access to rural poor by contributing towards poverty alleviation.
Currently (based on the PY4 report) there are 1961 RUSACCOs and 20 RUSACCO Unions operating in the country. These RUSACCOs have a membership size of 142,697 out of which 73,581 are male and 69116 female. These RUSACCOs has managed to mobilize savings amounting ETB 21.3 million and with a total capital of ETB 18.5 million. The RUSACCOs has disbursed a loan to their members amounting ETB 20.9 million during PY4. As