Sodom and Gomorrah to be evacuated

Created in 1979 illegally, the slum of Sodom & Gomorrah as lived under the threat of being removed ever since. But this time, the newspaper relate the strong will of Accra Municipality to move the slum outside of the city in Adzen Kotoku.
If it looks advisable to prevent people from settling on the land occupied today, which is surrounded by the highly polluted Korle Lagoon, many problems are yet to arise. Sodom & Gomorrah is indeed populated by thousands of temporary residents who come down from their village to sell their stock of products at the nearby Makola & Agbogbloshie markets. The land was therefore providing a cheap and central place wherefrom to operate and alternate solution is not part of municipality plan.
As far as ID-Ghana is concerned, we need to anticipate on this move as many of our partners reside or operate a business based on the land that will be relocated...

Visit of ALIDé in Ghana

The team of ALIDé from Benin came to visit us on 18th and 19th, June to benefit from an exposure visit, just like us in May and August 2008 and more recently in May 2009 (see post of May 2008).
If our interest was directed in Cotonou towards the Kick Start loans, ALIDé's interest was to discover all about our Onipa Nua group methodology, which became our exclusive approach in our residential areas since 1st, January 2009.
The programme of visits took us to Agbogbloshie, Chorkor, Dansoman and Glefe. The ALIDé Social Mission team also attended a group leaders' training, a project designed to benefit ID-Ghana's 100 Onipa Nua groups which aims to reinforce the governance of our credit scheme at group level.
This fourth exchange visit was once again the opportunity to witness how beneficial a regional coordination of Entrepreneurs du Monde is. Teams know each other very well by now and exchanges between ID-Ghana staffs and their Beninese counterparts are very lively!
In the context, the Regional Meeting of Ouagadougou scheduled in September is bound to be a success!

ID-Ghana in the newspaper 'Le Monde'

If you read French press, you might have seen an article on the area of Sodom and Gomorrah, in which ID-Ghana is quoted in 'Le Monde' dated 18 December 2008.
This is for us a great opportunity to have our actions shown to a wide audience of course, but it is also a way to see the usefulness of our work recognized by an independent and objective observer, in this case the journalist Philippe Bernard .
You can download and read the pdf version here.

'Le Monde' ('The World' in English) is a prominent French daily newspaper. Learn more about it by visiting its website or reading its Wikipedia article.

French Embassy visit in Sodom and Gomorrah (Agbogbloshie)

The Agbogbloshie branch received a new visit from the French Embassy this morning.

H.E.Mr. Francis Hurtut, new French Ambassador to Ghana (who arrived last September) and Mr. Arnaud Dornon, Head of Cooperation and Cultural Services (who joined the Embassy at the same time) visited our beneficiaries with Mrs. Marie-Hélène Hoba, the Press Attachée of the Embassy and Mr. Julien Morel, Coordinator of the Social Development Fund (who already visited us last March).
The field visit took us to the slums of Sodom and Gomorrah where many partners (i.e. beneficiaries) of ID-Ghana live and work. Benjamin Sackey, the Branch Manager of Agbogbloshie, guided us in the narrow streets of the slum, one of the biggest in Accra in terms of population (more than 30,000 families live there!) but also probably the most precarious and deprived. It has indeed been threatened with displacement and destruction for many years and has therefore never been on the top list of Accra Municipality to develop the infrastructure and the provision of basic amenities to the dwellers.
The visit was an opportunity to show the Embassy the wide variety of occupations of micro entrepreneurs met: homeopathic pharmacy, grocery store, tailor, etc.
The visit carried on to the yam market where nearly 2,000 vendors sell goods spilled from the trucks coming from the Sahelian regions of Ghana (North).
Three years after the development of a loans and savings methodology for markets supported by the French Embassy, we have applied again today for a support of the Cooperation Services to develop a "Kick Start" loan product. This product, originally developed by ALIDé in Benin, could enable us to reach the poorest families by offering them free of guarantee a loan of about GH¢30 to GH¢40 (€21 to €28 approx) without interest or processing fees. We would then be able to propel within one or two loan cycles maximum these families towards a more classic loan product with interest. This pilot project, which we hope will begin in the first quarter of 2009, would make it possible to propose to the poorest segments of the population of Accra an opportunity to develop an economic activity and provide them with a a long-term partnership by offering them access in a first-time to these "Kick-Start"loans and then in a second time, in addition to training, to our existing products' Onipa Nua' (group loans in residential area) and 'Front Desk' (loans with repayment at the counter, in market areas).

Sodom & Gomorrah is an area located in the heart of the city and officially unpopulated.
It is shown in red on the map above

You can also access the article of the French Embassy in Accra on this visit by clicking here.

The Success Story of July in Ghana

Adwoa Pokua is a mother of two, both children are ladies. Her first born is a trader who sells maize and is also a partner of ID-Ghana; the second child has just completed Senior High School and is awaiting her results. She has no husband as such she brought her children up single-handedly. Adwoa used to buy foodstuff from Dormaah (where she used to live) to sell in Accra, but most of her customers bought on credit and delayed their payment. She therefore decided to stop the foodstuff business and then left her hometown of Dormaah Apemkro (Ashanti Region, central Ghana) to come settle in Accra and start corn and cassava doe trade. She settled first in Ablekuma and then in Tabora (western Accra). She usually starts selling at 6:00 am on the Agbogbloshie market and closes at 7:00 pm. She got to know ID-Ghana through a friend. She was at the time selling her corn doe in very small quantities and she realised that long after her doe had finished people kept asking to buy some more… yet she couldn’t increase the quantity since she didn’t have the capital to do so. It was at this time, in 2006, that she started looking for financing opportunities. A friend of her finally men-tioned ID-Ghana to her. She had her first loan on the 24th, May, 2006 and she was given GH¢ 80/- (€ 50/-). Her second, third, fourth and fifth loans were respectively GH¢ 150/- (€ 93/-), GH¢ 250/- (€ 156/-), again GH¢ 250/- and finally GH¢ 400/- (€ 250/-). Through these loans she has been able to save up to GH¢ 225/- (€ 140/-), out of which she withdrew GH¢ 65/- (€ 40/-) to solve some family problems. According to her, ID-Ghana loans have been very beneficial; it kept her in business when most part of her capital was locked up in debt. Prior to her meeting with ID-Ghana, her weekly sales was just about GH¢ 66/- (€ 41/-); presently it is up to GH¢ 900/- (€ 560/-)! It also enabled her and her first daughter who also takes loan from the organisation to save money and later put their resources together to buy a plot of land. And last but not least, she has been able to pay her second child’s fees in the Senior High School till completion! As far as training are concerned, whatever ID-Ghana has taught her made her aware of the importance of customer care, personal hygiene --which is crucial to her kind of business-- and also how to manage her money better such that she doesn’t eat into her capital. Her plans for the future are to build a house and stores for her business on the land she and her daughter bought. It is also part of her plans to get her second daughter carry on her education at least to the university level…

Adwoa with Mrs. Jacquemot, the wife of the French Ambassador in Ghana, during a field visit in Agbogbloshie on 13th, June 2008. Behind are Alexander Sackey and Emmanuel, respectively Branch Manager and Credit Officer of Agbogbloshie

ID-Ghana's 10th Anniversary in Agbogbloshie

Agbogbloshie branch was again pleased to be under the spotlight of the French Embassy in Ghana today. And today was not just any day for ID-Ghana for it is the 10th anniversary of the organisation which was officially registered as a Ghanaian NGO on that date back in 1998!
Whether it was by chance or not, this is the day chosen for a visit by Mrs. Catherine Jacquemot, the wife of the French Ambassador in Ghana, Mrs. Francine Meyer, the Counsellor for Cooperation & Cultural Action (CCA) & Mrs. Noémie Pinsolle, the Finance and Administration manager of the Embassy. More than any other branch, Agbogbloshie benefited from the consideration of the French Embassy as this visit comes after that of the Ambassador himself in October 2007 and that of the NGO Coordinator of the Embassy, Mr. Morel, in March 2008 (see post of 19th March on this blog).
For Benjamin Sackey, the Branch Manager (green shirt), the presentation of the branch was an opportunity to develop a friendly and interesting exchange and to answer numerous questions on the whereabouts of microfinance activities management and specific challenges linked to the context of Agbogbloshie, one of the largest market area of Accra.
The field visit took us to many beneficiaires of the programme along with Benjamin & the Credit Officer Emmanuel Anaafi (blue-checked shirt). No need to say how eager were the micro businesswomen to share their experience and success about their developing venture...
This visit, which lasted approximately two and a half hours, enbaled us to make ID-Ghana's actions known to external people through one of the best performing branches. Indeed, Agbogbloshie, like Glefe branch, is securing month after month top indicators. No doubt that it is one extra motivation to capitalize their work into a formal documented manual that will make it possible for ID-Ghana to replicate the success of this branch in our two other branches located in market areas, that is to say Kaneshie and Madina.

Visit of Agbogbloshie

Today, Agbogbloshie branch was visited by Mr. Julien Morel of the Co-operation &n Cultural Actions Services of the French Embassy in Accra. This branch has been actively supported over the last three years by a grant from the French Embassy that enabled the development of a front desk methodology. This support, managed directly by the Embassy and called Social Development Fund, came to an end in June 2007.

The visit of Mr. Morel, who recently took over his position, was a opportunity to make him discover the work of ID-Ghana through a series of visits of micro-enterprises - , like this snails seller (see photo) - before the grant of their first loan.

The exchanges with Mr. Benjamin Sackey the Branch Manager (left on the photo hereunder) & Mr. Hamidu Abubakar Sidiq, the Field Operations Manager (right on the photo, yellow shirt) enabled Julien Morel to have a direct interaction the operators who are the closest to the field.




The visit to the branch ended by a presentation of the loans & savings software - Loan Performer -, which is updated in the branch itself.

Translated by Promina Tevels

Innovation and dynamism to answer partners' needs better

ID-Ghana is changing of face in 2007. Since its inception in 1998, the methodology of the organization (and its policy so to speak) has been a linear path without significant changes. Basically, the credit component of the activity of the organization was relatively standardized with 3 types of products offered two products of individual loans (micro loans and small loans) and a solidarity group loan product (group loans). Adherence to the principle of joint liability governed the functioning of groups, and was therefore a prerequisite that all group members who were required to comply with it. The savings component of ID-Ghana was closely linked to the credit component as clients' savings were nothing more than a "blocked" percentage of the credit given. Under this methodology, a system of collection in branch premises was combined with the collection on field (mainly for the monitoring of partners who did not repay their loan installment at the branch at the previously agreed date).

From second quarter of 2006 onwards, after an acute study of clients' needs, the idea emerged that the methodology should be adjusted to offer to clients accrued flexibility, reduce the default rate and lower the cost on one hand, while increasing the range of our services and choice for our clients on the other hand by offering a voluntary savings product (and not only compulsory anymore). These two new orientations are being tested through the implementation of two pilot projects in our branches of Glefe and Agbogbloshie.

We shall get back to you with further details about the main features of the methodology in a later post.

Published by Racine Ly (former programme coordinator)

Graduation ceremony at Sodome and Gomrorrah

Today was the graduation ceremony of a training course jointly organized by the NGO GHACOE Women's Ministry and ID-Ghana.
GHACOE is an organization based in the western suburb of Accra called Mataheko, and works towards the general empowerment of women through counselling and skills training. GHACOE has trained more than 4,000 women on cover batik, tie & dye, soap making cosmetics and flower decoration over the past few years.
Following field observations, particularly in Sodom & Gomorrah (district located within the boundaries of Agbogbloshie branch), ID-Ghana has had the idea in June 2005 to propose GHACOE Women's Ministry to team-up to organise trainings for women of the area so as to enable them later to develop their own income-generating activity.
Last March, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the two NGOs and the training, which took place in April-May, was entirely funded by ID-Ghana.
A total of 32 women have been trained, who have been awarded a diploma today, in the presence of ID-Ghana and GHACOE teams of course, but also Mrs. Francine Meyer, Head of Cooperation Services of the French Embassy in Accra. The French diplomatic mission in Ghana is the main funder of the branch of Agbogbloshie and the development of our front office approach in the market of the same name, through a funding from the Fund for Social Development (FSD).
The ceremony, which turned to be a very emotional time for the young women freshly graduated, was reported in local newspapers (you can read the article by clicking here).

Once the training session completed, ID-Ghana has pledged to disburse a loan to each of these women while GHACOE will make a monthly monitoring for some time to ensure a maximum impact of their training.