| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to explore experiences of village bank program implementation by the government of the Republic of Zambia. The study established that participants benefited from the program through increased smoothing consumptions, send their children to school, buy essential medication and improve their housing infrastructure, though these benefits were found to be temporal and short-lived as participants returned to the original status after being weaned from the program. The study also found that for some women the program brought more hurt through shame and shaming and other negative effects. Factors in the supply side (program activities) and demand side (response of program beneficiaries to program activities) that promote or inhibit the success of a program was also established during the study. For example, the study established that the targeting of women, group-based lending, and visits client‘s place of business were some of the factors that promoted the success of the program. While faulty group formation, inexperienced personnel, inadequate monitoring, and unsatisfactory record keeping, delayed loan disbursement, and standardizing financial products by the implementing organization hindered program success. While factors such as misapplication of loan funds, dropping out or defaulting and unwillingness to pay back the loan were some of the factors identified as being hindering program success from by beneficiaries of the program.
The study was guided and informed by the implementation and program theory. In order to establish the above information, the study used a qualitative research design. The study was conducted in Chongwe District about 5km away from the Capital City Lusaka. Chongwe is a peri-urban district. The study used purposive sampling to recruit participants to know about the operations of Village Bank program implemented by the government. Participants of the study were in three categories; government officials implementing the program (10), current participants of the programme (7) and former programme participants (2).
Data were mainly collected through semi-structured interviews, direct observation, and document review. Interview guides were developed for each category, interviews were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic approach. | en |
