(WEST NILE, UGANDA) – The South Sudanese Refugees Association has trained its staff on the use of a digital platform aimed at modernising the management of village savings and loan association groups among refugees and host communities in Uganda’s West Nile region.
The training was conducted in partnership with Ensibuuko under the programme “Enhancing community resilience through gender responsiveness and economic empowerment for psychosocial well-being of refugees and host communities”, which is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation with technical support from Cities Alliance.
The session focused on building staff capacity in digital record keeping, monitoring of group activities and tracking financial transactions within savings groups operating in Arua City and Koboko Municipality.
Staff were trained on how to register savings groups using the Chomoka application developed by Ensibuuko. The system is designed to allow real time monitoring of group meetings, savings contributions, loans and penalties through a central digital platform.
The digital system is expected to allow staff to follow group activities remotely, including in locations that are difficult to access physically, improving oversight and efficiency in programme delivery.
The platform also enables identification of members who are not meeting savings targets or loan repayment schedules, while also highlighting groups performing well. This is expected to help programme officers design targeted support measures to improve financial discipline and group performance.
For a long period, discussions have taken place around transitioning village savings and loan associations from manual record keeping to digital systems. Traditional methods have been seen as vulnerable to loss of records, errors and in some cases security risks linked to handling physical cash and documentation.
Group leaders have previously expressed concerns about the safety of savings records and the risks associated with managing cash based systems, particularly in remote areas where security and access challenges are common.
The introduction of digital savings tools is expected to reduce these risks by providing secure electronic records and improving transparency in financial transactions within community based savings groups.
The system will allow both nationals and refugees to register as individuals or group members, enabling broader participation in structured savings and loan activities.
It will also support linkages between village savings and loan associations and formal financial institutions, including banks and savings and credit cooperative organisations, which can provide additional financial services such as credit facilities and savings products.
The programme is being implemented in Arua City and Koboko Municipality, where large refugee and host community populations rely on informal savings groups as a key source of financial support and access to credit.
Development partners involved in the project say digital financial inclusion tools are increasingly important in improving access to finance, strengthening accountability and supporting income generating activities in communities with limited access to formal banking systems.
The South Sudanese Refugees Association said the training marks a step towards improving financial management systems within community savings structures and supporting long term economic resilience for both refugees and host populations in the region.