Africa Guardian

Dar es Salaam:
The Tanzania Association of Microfinance Institution (TAMFI) has
embarked on a new programme to build the capacity of the country’s
microfinance sector to lead it into new growth heights.
Over 50 institutional members of the body, which include small and big
microfinance institutions across the country, will benefit from the
cooperation project between TAMFI and the German based Savings Bank
Foundation for International Cooperation (SBFIC).
The two organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
that will see the over 56 institutional members of TAMFI benefit from
state-of-the art training and capacity building services. SBFIC aims
to enhance the professional capacity of its partner institutions,
empowering them to offer their customers a permanent access to
financial services.
TAMFI chair Mr. Edmund Mkwawa said that microfinance professionals in
the arrangement will be trained on how to handle their clients, learn
the clients’ behaviour, assess the impact of economy and capital
market. They are also trained on how to beef up their daily activities
for improved performance, take advantage of opportunities and invest
well in order to maximize outreach. This will ultimately lead to high
rates of loans repayment a necessity for microfinance institutions to
survive.
“One of the causes of low loan repayment is lack of education on both
the loan officers as well as the loan consumers but if both parties
are adequately educated on how microfinance works, the level of
defaulting would go down,” he said.
According to Ms Marret Schadwinkel of SBFIC the project aims at
increasing the availability and qualification of financial
institutions’ staff through the offer of basic vocational education.
“We aim at improving access to financial services in the country and
the business simulation is meant to increase and strengthen personal
and professional development in Tanzania. We believe by providing the
education to financial institutions under TAMFI the benefits will
trickle down to the whole microfinance sector,” she said.
Microfinance institutions are all important as they provide loans to
small and medium sized businesses and hence play a big role in poverty
reduction and nation building initiatives she asserted.
A first round of training was conducted in Arusha and Dar es Salaam
recently. The training saw a cross-section of TAMFI members involved
in very participatory and interactive training sessions. The trainings
focussed on strategic management of MFIs based on a business
simulation, enabling the participants to simulate their virtual MFI
through various phases of their life-cycle.
Mrs Winnie Terry, TAMFI Executive secretary who commended the training
said, “it was an exclusive training because it was practical and
involved making decisions while taking into account internal and
external factors which influence businesses. It was fun too when
participants were competing each other in making appropriate business
decisions which led into profits or losses.”
Mr Amulike Ngeliama, Chairman for Mtoni Lutheran Church Saccos Ltd,
who was a participant at the training in Dar es Salaam had this to
say:
“The training was an eye opener…and very important to the microfinance
institutions.
About SBFIC: In 1992, Germany’s Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe established
the Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation (Savings Banks
Foundation for International Cooperation – SBFIC). Since that time,
the Sparkassenstiftung is actively supporting financial institutions,
promoting a sustainable economic and social development at a local,
regional or national level by offering banking services that are
tailored to the needs of the target groups. The Sparkassenstiftung
aims to enhance the professional capacity of its partner
institutions, empowering them to offer their customers a permanent
access to financial services. In particular small and medium- sized
enterprises (SME), but also poor population strata and social fringe
groups belong to the target groups of the Sparkassenstiftung’s partner
institutions. Focusing business operations on the SME sector and
small-income earners actually benefits the partner institutions
themselves: serving small businesses and private clients allows
generating stable and sufficient profits on a sustainable basis.