THRIVE 2030 Project Digitizes Women Savings Groups in Ghana

“We used to record our savings activities manually. This process was prone to errors, causing confusion and mistrust," said Lydia Abraham, a member of one of the savings for transformation groups in the Bawku West Area Program. 

Manual record-keeping often led to misplaced entries and arithmetic mistakes that could easily go unnoticed. This not only affected the accuracy of financial records but also made it difficult to track progress and ensure accountability. As a result, it was challenging to maintain transparency and trust among group members. 

To address these, Transforming Households Resilience in Vulnerable Environments by 2030 (THRIVE 2030), a World Vision initiative, has helped several Savings for Transformation groups in 12 World Vision Ghana operational areas such as Bawku West, Builsa South, Wa West, and East Gonja, among others, to digitalize their savings activities. 

“Digitization has resolved the data entry errors we used to encounter and enhanced transparency in financial management and built trust," said Lydia. Lydia Asuntaba's group was nearly marred by data entered in errors by the group's secretary. However, with the adoption of digitization, this challenge has been resolved. 

THRIVE 2030 introduced the Dream Save application, a mobile-based financial application enabling these savings groups to not only overcome data entry errors and challenges associated with manual record entering and keeping but also improve saving time. 

“Even the time we used to conduct our savings activities has reduced. It now takes approximately 10-15 minutes for a group of 25 members to conduct savings, which was not previously possible because of manual record-entering," she said. 

This reduces the time spent in each savings meeting, enabling women to attend to their economic and livelihood activities. As a result of digitization, members are able to receive real-time information in the form of short message alerts on their group and personal savings, which also include information on loan disbursement and repayment. 

“Now everybody knows how much they have saved, the loan taken, and the amount repaid. Also, the number of times each person attended savings meetings is also known to each member," he said. 

“ We have introduced and trained almost all our Savings for Transformation Groups to and use of Dream Save, a mobile financial application. This app has resolved data capture errors associated with manual Justice Tiigah, THRIVE 2030 Project Manager at World Vision Ghana.  

 Digitization represents a significant step in professionalizing community-based financial systems while maintaining their core principle of collective economic empowerment. 

"The use of technology not only saves time and resolves data entry challenges; it empowers women through accurate financial management, reduces financial mismanagement, builds confidence in group financial processes, and makes financial information more accessible to group members," said Justice Tiigah, Thrive 2030 Manager. 

The deployment of technology also creates standardized financial tracking, enables easier auditing, supports financial literacy, and provides a clear financial history for each member, he added.