Visit of the new FSD Coordinator

Today the Chorkor branch received the visit of the new FSD Coordinator, Miss Elise Ponson. As some of you may remember, the FSD (Fund for Social Development) is a fund managed by the French Embassy which aims at bringing a direct support to local NGOs.
In our case, we are receiving this support for the second time, for the development of our 0% interest loan aiming at the most deprived micro entrepreneurs that we call "Kick Start loans".
Elise came on field to discover our methodology and she met with the Mokosane group, made of 13 Kick Start loanees. 2 of them got their loan in June, the rest in July. The average amount they got is GH¢ 44, which they all used in their business, like Rosemary Mensah (see photos below) who purchased Nigerian soap with it, which she sells in her community. In addition, most of the group is now saving GH¢ 1 to GH¢ 2 per week, while before they joined ID-Ghana almost none of them was saving. This kind of behavioural change is made possible thanks to the training the Social Mission team (in this case the Kick Start loan project manager, Godknows Kporha). He gives such trainings on a weekly basis to our Kick Start partners. After all, one could say that the Kick Start loans project is more of a financial education programme than a financial scheme. For rather sooner than later, our ambition is to see these special product beneficiaries be empowered enough to be able to manage a loan on their own, and access greater capital through our "standard" products...

Malaria Prevention and Management campaign in Nima

We organised today jointly with our partner organisation Infanta Malaria Prevention Foundation (IMPF) a malaria prevention and management event in our community of Nima.

IMPF already helped us design our malaria training curriculum last year and shared with us some of their training tools that we use in our health and hygiene trainings.


This event in Nima consisted in the screening of approximately 150 children through a simple blood test (called Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Tests) and a training on malaria.
The campaign is the result of a joint effort of both organisations to gather necessary materials to make the tests on one hand (IMPF) and to find a venue and gather the Nima community on that particular day on the other hand (ID-Ghana).

The Success Story of August in Ghana

Jessie is a 58 year old divorced woman with three children. The first two who are 38 years and 33 years are both married while the last who is 18 is in the Senior High School. She hails from Bukom in the Greater Accra Region. She was however born and bred in Kaneshie, Accra. Currently, she lives at Bubuashie but sells at the Kaneshie market where she has her shop.

Jessie used to sell cosmetics but later changed to the sale of cloth-ing since she felt she will make more profit. She usually opens her shop at 7:00 am and closes at 5:30 pm.
Her second child settled in the United States. He used to regularly send her money that she could invest in her business. But as he got married, remittance stopped immediately, which crushed her plan to expand her business. As she discussed about her situation with a friend of hers, she was introduced to ID-Ghana.
After making contacts and receiving our Credit Officers at her business place, she qualified for a first loan and received GH¢ 300 in October 2007. She again received GH¢ 500 and GH¢ 700 in April and November 2008 respectively. Currently, she is a Front Desk partner and her fourth loan of GH¢ 500 is being used to expand her business.
With the support from ID-Ghana she has been able to significantly diversify her business: with time, she included panties, braziers and scarves. Before taking the loan, her sales were ranging between GH¢ 10 and GH¢ 20 daily. Today, her sales range between GH¢ 30 and GH¢ 100 daily! Besides her savings of GH¢ 100 with ID-Ghana, she is also saving with UT Bank. Currently, she is able to meet her financial obligations without any headache. She is happy she is able to pay her last born’s fees without difficulties; she even withdrew some money from her savings for this purpose. Her greatest dream is to build a house for her children. She is confident she will be able to realise this dream since she is actively saving towards it!

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...

Kick start loans started at ID-Ghana!

The Kick Start loan project, funded by the French Embassy in Accra, has started on field with the first batch of disbursements at the branch of Chorkor.
After receiving their third training, the 9 selected women were given between GH¢ 40 and GH¢ 50 each. These micro entrepreneurs will pay no fees or interest for these very small loans (for amounts so small, we can talk of nano-loans). They are mostly fuits and vegetable vendors and the aim is to upgrade them in two or three loan cycles at a level of activity that enables them to take a more standard loan through our Onipa Nua groups.
This project is not driven by the financial team but by the social mission team, as a lot of emphasis is put on training and monitoring of micro entrepreneurs (or should I rather say nano entrepreneurs...?)
contrary to our other loan products Onipa Nua, this product is an individual one and is offered only to women. However, Kick Start loan partners are encouraged to join a group as early as possible to facilitate their integration later and they are equally encouraged to save each and every week, even a minimum amount.

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!

AFD donates computers to ID-Ghana

The French Agency for Development AFD has donated today to ID-Ghana ten computers to enable us provide better quality services to our partners in the branches. These computers will be mostly used on field, equipped with our loans and savings tracking system (called Loan Performer) as shown on the picture below taken in our Chorkor branch.

Nima in Black & White

We received last December the visit of a photojournalist called Guillaume Binet from MYOP photo agency in Paris.
Guillaume has extensively worked on the expansion of cities in the developing world, in Africa and South America more particularly.

He spent a few days in Accra and explored the area of Nima & Mamobi where he took some shots of the people there, many of whom are ID-Ghana partners.
From the lower part of the area where the gutter flows to the uphill side of Kanda highway, the snaps give an insight of the life in Nima and allow the viewers to sense the atmosphere of this historical popular district of Accra, which received as early as the 1910's its first migrants coming from the Sahelian region to work in the the then economically dynamic Gold Coast.
Come and discover the diaporama on MYOP website by clicking here!

The Success Story of April in Ghana

Mariam is a 42 year old woman whose husband is based in Germany. Their three children live with her at Madina Estate close to Accra. Her first child is 29, followed by the second 19 and the last 5. The first is a trader; the second is in Senior High School Form 2 and the last in Kindergarten. Her husband remits her every month to help with the upkeep of the children. He also visits Ghana at least twice a year so as to spend sometime with the family.

Mariam comes from Tamale in the Northern region of Ghana. She migrated to Accra to trade. On her arrival, she lived with a cousin at Achimota and soon started selling baby clothes. She later got married and then joined her husband at Madina. It was after she had their 3rd child, her husband travelled outside the country for greener pastures.
After selling babies’ wares for some years, she decided to change to plastic bowls since some friends advised she would make more money. She has been selling the bowls for about 6 years now and usually open her shop at 7:00 am and closes at 6:00 pm.
Mariam got to know about ID-Ghana when she needed a loan to enable her expand and diversify her business. A friend of hers who happened to be a partner of ID-Ghana introduced her to Benjamin Egyir, a credit officer at the Madina branch. She was educated on the procedures of the organisation and was given her first loan on the 7th, June 2007.
With her first loan of GH¢ 120, she was able to increase her stock. Her subsequent loans of GH¢ 220, GH¢ 400 and GH¢ 700 received on 25th, October 2007, 28th, February 2008 and 3rd, July 2008 re-spectively, enabled her to include kitchen knives, cutlery set and glasses to her stock.
Before taking the loan from ID-Ghana, her turnover used to be about GH¢ 50 a day. Currently, with the diversification and expan-sion of her business, there has been great increase in her sales. Her turnover now ranges between GH¢ 80 and GH¢ 150. On the whole, the loan has been very beneficial to her. She now has no difficulty paying her children fees even when her husband doesn't send money down. She is able to take better care of them, thanks to ID-Ghana. Her future plans are to educate her two children still in School to the tertiary level and to build a house for them.

Fishermen of Glefe

Glefe, where we have one of our seven branches, is not a very well known area of the city. It indeed lies in the South-Western corner of Accra, locked in between a lagoon and the ocean. There is only one access for cars: a narrow road across the lagoon.
This sandy land, slowly eaten up by the violent waves of the Gulf of Guinea, has been occupied by different communities for the past 15 to 20 years and quite naturally, fishermen communities initially settled there.
Nowadays, fishes have rather left the immediate vicinity of the urban seashore and most fishermen have gone to further locations. But a few boats still carry on some fishing activity from the beach.
The fishing technique consists in dropping the very long net off the shore with the boat. The team of 20+ men handles from the beach the net and follows the drift of the heavy equipment sometimes over several hundreds of meters, starting from Pambros beach to Dansoman beach, some 2 km further. Once the net is expected to be containing a good catch, it is closed and brought on the land.
Women carrying empty dishes follow the team of fishermen from a distance and once the net is brought on shore, they come to purchase the fish right from the net. These women are among the beneficiaries of ID-Ghana.
Already once today have the fishermen launched their net to bring it almost empty. The second catch we attended to was also meager and it is almost another GH¢ 10 burnt in the form of fuel that fishermen would have to bear. Rather too often, these sea worker have to borrow money from the women whom they pay back with the fishes they catch later on. Fishermen launch the net up to three times a day. Today each of them won't make more than a couple of Ghana cedi each...

GH¢ 1 = € 1.7

The Success Story of March in Ghana

Lardi is 43 years old. She is married with three children. Her hus-band, 48, works with Prudential Bank. She lives in Nima with her family. Her eldest child is 20 and has just completed Senior High School; the second child is 18 and is in Senior High School form 2; the last, 12, is in class 6.

Lardi hails from Kongo in the Upper East Region of Ghana. She migrated to Accra in search of a job. Upon her arrival in Accra she lived with an uncle at 37 Military Hospital until she got a job as a house help. She later left the job because she felt she was made to over work, yet her salary was nothing to write home about. She then started selling ice water, initially in the street, until she met her husband. She later moved from her uncle's house to join her husband at Nima where she has resided since. Even though they changed accommodation a number of times, they have always lived within Nima.
Long after she got married Lardi continued selling ice water until her customers started requesting for minerals. She therefore started saving some money from her profit towards this business venture. After saving for some time, her husband contributed some money to get her start her minerals business. The money however was still not sufficient for her to register with the Coca Cola distributor. It was at that point that she needed a loan to en-able her realise her dream.
Fortunately, she got to know about ID-Ghana. She happened to be living in the same compound house with a brother of Sunday Daa Tii, a Credit Officer of ID-Ghana. She came into contact with Sunday, when he went to visit his brother. Through a conversation she got to know he works with a micro finance organization. She immediately told him about her desire to secure a loan. Sunday was helpful in getting her her first loan and he has continued to be helpful and good to her since.
She received her first loan of GH¢ 30 on 20th, August 2007. With her first loan she was able to register with a Coca Cola truck which supplied her with bottled minerals (sodas). With her subsequent loans of GH¢ 60, GH¢ 100, GH¢ 150, GH¢ 200, GH¢ 250 and GH¢ 400 received between March 2005 and November 2008, she was able to diversify by adding canned minerals and biscuits to her business.
Further, her business has expanded, thanks to the support from ID-Ghana. She has also been able to purchase a glass stand where she now sells very comfortably. Before dealing with ID-Ghana, she made sales of about GH¢ 10 a week. Currently, her sales range between GH¢ 100 and GH¢ 150 a week!
On the issue of trainings received from ID-Ghana, she thinks it is very beneficial since it helped her manage her finances better. In addition to her savings of GH¢ 150 with ID-Ghana, she is able to save with a Susu collector (local traditional savings system) and also has an account with Stanbic Bank.
Today, our financial support has helped her greatly in the payment of her children’s fees. She has been able to buy a lot of kitchen wares which she did not have before. She is also able to support her husband better now.
Her future plan is to save enough money to help her husband to complete a building project which he has not been able to finish due to financial difficulties.

Signature of the FSD funding contract

The contract between the French Embassy in Accra and ID-Ghana was signed today by the French Ambassador in Accra, HE Francis Hurtut (right) and the Executive Director of ID-Ghana (Romain Tevels, center), in presence of the Deputy Director of ID-Ghana (Bruno Achana, left).
As mentioned in a previous article (see this blog on 9th, January), this funding of € 24,000 over one year will enable ID-Ghana to develop an new loan product meant for the most deprived micro entrepreneurs of Accra. This product, named "Kick Start loan", won't have any interest or processing fee.
The idea is to identify potential micro entrepreneurs in a particularly difficult situation that does not allow them to manage a "standard" loan. A reinforced social follow-up would enable them to deal with the financial help (i.e. the loan) that ID-Ghana would give them. In a time span of one to two loan cycles (approximately 3 to 6 months), the micro entrepreneur will be in a position to upgrade herself and take a normal loan through our 'Onipa Nua' group methodology.


See also the related article on the French Embassy web site.

The Success Story of February in Ghana

Mary Brown is a Ga from Chorkor in the Greater Accra Region. She is in her 40s and has been divorced for four years after twenty-five years of marriage. She has three children - one boy and two girls. They are Larte Lartey, 12 years old and in class 6, Larkor Lartey, 9 years old and in class 5, and Larkaly Lartey, 6 years old and in class 2. According to her, the first two children live with their paternal grandfather.
Mary was in Hair Dyeing business when she joined ID-Ghana. She was among the first partners to receive a loan when Chorkor branch was opened in 2002 (see our article of July 2003). She has since received not less than seven loans. Her first loan was GH¢15.00 and her current one is GH¢150.00.
Mary’s working capital back in 2002 was about GH¢50.00 but it has now grown to about GH¢200.00 today. According to her, with the help of the loans and business trainings she has been receiving from ID-Ghana, she was able to divert from hair dyeing into turkey tail business (a delicacy in Ghana!) and further on into fruit business only four months ago. Her savings position in ID-Ghana is currently GH¢185.00.
The loan has helped her in the following ways:
- She has been able to complete the chamber-and-hall apartment where she lives with her last born.
- She has been able furnish her room with items like television, furniture, etc.
- She also bought a fridge during the turkey tail business for freezing the meat
- She is also able to support her child’s education.
Her future business plans are to save a lot of money to expand her fruits business for her to have variety of fruits to satisfy the customers and to save enough money to support her children.
She is keen to say that ID-Ghana’s loans and trainings have helped her to diversify her business twice without any problem. Through the trainings, she has been able to run her business without any difficulty. Now she has recognized and appreciates the importance of savings as well as how to cost her products before selling.
For Mary, ID-Ghana has gained a lot of importance in her life throughout 7 years of support…

ID-Ghana programme brochure for 2008 is out!

Like last year, the programme brochure relating last year's achievements of ID-Ghana has jut been released.

This document provides in few pages a simple but rather comprehensive overview of progresses made by the programme in 2008 and gives an idea of expected developments for 2009. You can download in pdf format and read it by clicking

here.
Feel free to share it with your contacts!

The Success Story of January in Ghana

Jesse is 58 years old and is married to Mr. Thomas Addo. They are both Ga people from the Greater Accra Region. They have been married for 20 years now and have three children - Sarah Annan 38, single and unemployed, Justice Annan 35, married and living in London, and Michael Addo 17, a form two student of Mankessim Secondary Technical School.
They have been living at Bubuashie, a suburb of Accra for the past sixteen years in her family house, a four bedroom apartment which is shared with her other siblings.
In1981, Jesse was working as a sales girl at Swanlake supermarket located at North Kaneshie. She worked there for six years before resigning.
Soon after that, she started selling panties at the Kaneshie Market with an initial capital of GH¢ 0.20 (then ¢ 2,000). She was rein-vesting all the profit she made back into the business which en-abled her to add other items customers were demanding such as singlets, ladies’ skirts, boxer shorts, socks, scarves, T-shirts, nightgowns, towels, braziers etc.
Between 2005 and 2007 there were other demands which re-quired additional capital. In her quest to meet these demands, she had discussions with some friends to find means to raise the needed capital. A friend introduced her to ID-Ghana. She was granted her first loan of GH¢ 300 in November 2007, a second loan of GH¢ 500 in April 2008 and the third and current loan of GH¢ 700 at the end of November 2008.
These loans have helped her to add items such as bed sheets, curtains, shedda materials, gray bath, voile etc, which are on high demand. Her capital base has increased to GH¢ 3,000 from GH¢ 2,000, and her daily sales to GH¢ 50 from GH¢ 30. She has also built up savings of GH¢ 160 while operating her business in a small metal container at the market.
She feels ID-Ghana has been of great help to her as it helped her meet all the demands of her customers. She more specifically thinks the trainings she received so far on Costing and Pricing, Importance of Savings, Customer Care, etc have helped her in running her business effectively. She also considers the regular visits of Lucas Dovie (the Credit Officer in charge) to find out how her business is doing as a source of encouragements.
Her plan for the future is to have a large stock of all the products she sells so that she does not run short of supplies. For example, today, some customers come looking for calico and cotton hand-kerchief which she does not have in stock.
Her other plans are to save enough money to see her last child through his education up to university level and to acquire land to put up a house of her own.

New year, new challenges!

2009 arrived as 2008 ended on a positive note for ID-Ghana. Indeed, a number of potential donors have confirmed their desire to support our actions:

• Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst (DED), the German cooperation, confirmed a 3-year support for the co-financing the one Executive Director and one Finance and Administrative Manager position;
• The French Embassy in Accra, through the Fund for Social Development (FSD) has also confirmed its will to fund the development of a loan product aiming at reaching out to very poor micro-entrepreneurs, like the “Kick Start” loans developed by ALIDé in Benin (see article of 23 May 2008 on this subject);
• Global Rating and Assessment Service (GRASS) has expressed its readiness to co-finance a comprehensive rating of ID-Ghana by Microfinanza Rating in the last quarter of 2009. This program, which involves under ADA banner the Government of Luxembourg, the Microfinance Initiative Liechtenstein, the Swiss Cooperation, ResponsAbility and Oxfam Novib aims to support the social and financial rating of MFIs.

These funds will thus enable us to put in place a number of major projects in 2009 like the transfer of leadership to a local management team (the ads have already been placed in local newspapers) or the development of a loan product without fees or interest that will enable us to increase our impact on the poorest entrepreneurs of Accra.
The rating with the Italian agency Microfinanza Rating, which will include a part related to the evaluation of purely financial services (credit and savings) and a part that will seek to assess the social impact of ID-Ghana, is bound to enhance critically our credibility towards future funders.
But these milestones of ID-Ghana’s 2009 development plan are far from covering all the projects scheduled for this year. Indeed, the opening of a new branch, probably in the Northern neighbourhood of Anyaa, the expansion of our ‘Onipa Nua’ group methodology (based on the pilot-experience of Glefe, see article of 30th, January and 10th, February 2007) which, since 1st, January, became the only methodology used in residential areas, the development of new trainings modules or the deployment of a savings methodology in market areas, are as many decisive projects that will enable us to reach out to 8,000 micro-entrepreneurs (against just over 5,000 last year) and achieve a level of financial sustainability of 88% at the end of 2009 (against about 80% at end 2008).
The ID-Ghana team, who gathered today in Head Office for its yearly party, is more than ever motivated to pick these challenges!

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.