ECLOF-Ghana has launched a business development services (BDS) unit by which it aims to provide non-financial services that are vital to the development of sustainable microenterprises.
It is a Christian development organisation born out of the Christian Council of Ghana and belonging to the ECLOF global family with its head office in Geneva.
The principal aim of the BDS unit is to raise financial literacy levels, as well as managerial skills, among ECLOF’s clients by teaching new knowledge, skills and attitudes expected to bring about changes in money and management behaviour.
The BDS unit has a target of taking a minimum of 5,000 clients through this imperative exercise.
Currently ECLOF-Ghana has over 7,500 clients, with a portfolio of over US$1.5m; and with its policy of bringing finance and non-financial services close to its clients, ECLOF aims at broadening its presence countrywide, which currently stands at twenty outlets in five regions of the country.
ECLOF’s core business remains the provision of financial services to the unbanked in the country by providing micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs) access to credit, building lump-sums, financial literacy, and insurance.
The BDS will additionally serve as a tool to promote financial inclusion, enabling people to take greater advantage of the financial services available to them. The business education is expected to translate into such actions and offer insights to help in transforming the lives of clients in particular and the entirety of the informal sector.
The BDS is organised by well-trained officials with requisite participatory learning skills. Training is held in ECLOF units and during meeting schedules on the field. Each client has an attendance book that is marked.
Upon full completion of a 10-module course, clients are awarded with certificates. Very good participants are then used as resource persons, and they enjoy reductions in interest rates on ECLOF’s loan products.
ECLOF is aiming to undertake financial literacy lessons for both existing clients and prospective ones, and organise business clinics for its SME clients in the future.
All ECLOF’s clients are expected to go through its financial literacy lessons and free medical screening to attract relatively lower interest rates on its loan products.
ECLOF Ghana began its operations in 1978.
It is a private Christian Micro Finance Institution and a non-political, non-governmental organisation having a mission of mobilising resources and offering sustainable customer-centered financial services for the total development of its clients and the benefit of all stakeholders.
Source: Business and Financial Times
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