Since 2014, the VSLA in the district, made cumulative savings of about GHC824,479 where over GHc100,000.00 loans were given to members, with a total share out of about GHC431,675 and GHC42,647 dividends paid to members.

Members of VSLA contribute various sums of money within a period and borrow from it at low interest rates to expand their businesses as well as share the proceeds realized within the period. The formation of the VSLA in the District was facilitated by the Resiliency in Northern Ghana (RING) project, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Mr Ibrahim Abudu, USAID RING Governance Advisor at Saboba, who spoke at a general meeting of VSLA members at Saboba, said the VSLA groups were trained in financial literacy and business management amongst others to improve their operations.

Mr Abudu said the operations of the VSLA helped to reduce poverty in the District by ensuring that members had access to small funds to undertake business activities to meet their health needs, cater for their children’s education and household demands.

Mr George Bingirini, District Chief Executive for Saboba, commended USAID RING for its interventions in the District, saying the VSLA had empowered residents to undertake income generating activities to ensure development.  Mr Philip Natob, USAID RING Monitoring Officer at Saboba, said measures were put in place to ensure transparency in the operations of the VSLA, which encouraged people to join and save to generate funds for investment.

 Some of the women beneficiaries thanked USAID RING for facilitating the VSLA in the District, saying it had helped them to learn how to save to support their business.  USAID RING works in 17 districts in the Northern Region to improve the nutrition and livelihoods of targeted households through various interventions including rearing of small ruminants, cultivation of soybean, orange fleshed sweet potato amongst others.