September 17, 2010
Microfinance Group in Southern Sudan Branches to Wau
The microfinance lender Finance Sudan officially opened its Wau branch office this week, its fifth since starting in Southern Sudan in 2006. The lending group, which currently serves 3,000 clients, anticipates opening a sixth branch office in Yei before the year ends.
“We’re transforming lives through innovative finance,” says Finance Sudan country manager Robert Oketi, who helped welcome guests and dignitaries to the Sept. 15 ceremony at the new office in Wau, West Bahr al Ghazal. “Microfinance is more than just access to finance, it’s about reaching the community.”
Finance Sudan is a partner in the USAID-funded Generating Economic Development through Microfinance in Southern Sudan (GEMSS) program, which ACDI/VOCA implements with AED. The program seeks to strengthen the region’s financial sector and improve access to financial services for small business owners and low-income people.
“We want to see the women who sell bread on the streets today become tomorrow’s bread bakery owners,” says Tim Carson, chairperson of Finance Sudan and CEO of MicroAfrica Group, of which Finance Sudan is an affiliate.
Microfinance Key to Sudan’s Economic Growth
Southern Sudan is in the process of rebuilding after a protracted civil war. Under agreement with the Republic of Sudan, the southern region is largely autonomous and will be voting for full independence next year. Wau officials and leaders at the Finance Sudan branch opening agreed that a strong microfinance sector is needed to help rebuild and keep Wau’s emerging economy growing.
“Microfinance is part of the strategies we have laid out to encourage private sector investment,” says His Excellency the Governor Brigadier General Rizik Hassan Zacharia. “We need powerful institutions that grow from our people’s experience—and now we have Finance Sudan.”
Other dignitaries in attendance included Pascal Bandindi Uru, chairperson of the Committee of Land and Natural Resources of the Southern Sudanese Legislative Assembly and a Finance Sudan board member; Arkangel Barri Wanje, chairperson of the Committee of Finance, Economy and Development of the Southern Sudanese Legislative Assembly; Irene Karimi, chief of party for ACDI/VOCA in Sudan, who also leads the GEMSS program; and Richard Kigozi, manager of Finance Sudan, Wau.
“Microfinance is not an experiment, it has been proven to work,” ACDI/VOCA’s Karimi says. “But it does take a lot of work on behalf of the clients to make microfinance succeed.”
GEMSS, implemented by ACDI/VOCA and AED, is a three-year program that builds on success to launch the microfinance industry in Southern Sudan in 2003 by bolstering the capacity of the region’s microfinance institutions and sector-support organizations.
For more information on ACDI/VOCA's work in financial services.
Pictured at top left: Governor Brigadier General Rizik Hassan Zacharia signs the legal registration for Finance Sudan's new branch office, which opened in Wau, Southern Sudan.
