Breaking the cycle of poverty and empowering individuals and communities

Saving Group Members

Average annual savings

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SaveAct facilitates the formation of savings groups in communities as a simple but effective tool to fight poverty, as a foundation for building sustainable livelihoods, and as a means to empower women and other vulnerable groups.

Founded in Pietermaritzburg in 2005, we have 100 000 individual members in five provinces in South Africa and work with a network of committed partner organisations.

Our unique savings and credit model incorporates:

Financial Education
Enterprise Development Training
Ecosystems Development
Last-mile Distribution Projects
These programmes are aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty and empowering individuals and communities to play more active roles in economic and social development.

Our Four Programmes

Savings groups and financial capability

We facilitate the establishment in rural communities of voluntary savings groups that allow people to save and grow their money. We work with partners across six provinces to scale up the model, which includes financial education and enterprise development.

Livelihoods and enterprise development

Building on the success of savings groups, we have created a livelihoods and enterprise development (LED) programme. This aims to improve livelihood and wealth creation opportunities in a sustainable manner while empowering people to take ownership of their enterprises.

Last mile access: Zis’Ukhanyo

To achieve long-term sustainability, savings groups and enterprise groups need to be able to access goods and services at reasonable prices — often in deep rural areas where these commodities are hard to come by. The Zis’Ukhanyo programme tackles those needs.

Building ecosystems

We have a vision of using technology and access to markets to build an improved “ecosystem” with financial and other services designed around the needs of savings groups and, more generally, those who continue to be largely excluded from the dominant development path.

Latest News

Resilience against climate shocks

Resilience against climate shocks

Coverage by the Daily Maverick of a Tipping Points webinar late last year profiled the progress of SaveAct-promoted savings groups in Namaqualand in building resilience in a rapidly changing environment – and some of the achievements of our implementation partner...

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Youth in enterprise & farming study

Youth in enterprise & farming study

SaveAct facilitates the formation of savings groups in communities as a simple but effective tool to fight poverty, as a foundation for building sustainable livelihoods, and as a means to empower women and other vulnerable groups. Between 2019 and 2022, SaveAct...

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The road to sustainable agriculture

The road to sustainable agriculture

Ten years ago, in the small village of Khaoue in the Eastern Cape, SaveAct held its first vegetable production training session with small-scale farmers from the village. The purpose of the two-day event, in September 2014, was to teach the farmers, who were all in...

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Visit

123 Jabu Ndlovu Street

Pietermaritzburg
Kwazulu-Natal
3201
South Africa
Contact

+27 (0) 33 345 1222