Good governance key
.... as SACCO sector charts transformative path
SIFISO MAPURANGA
Zimbabwe’s Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) sector is on the cusp of a transformation, with key stakeholders emphasizing that strong governance will be central to its sustainable growth.
Last Friday, representatives from leading SACCOs, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), NASCUZ, the Ministry of Finance and Investment Promotion, and the Government’s Cooperative Registry convened at the Monomotapa Hotel under the facilitation of the World Bank to map a collaborative path forward.
The Zimbabwe SACCO Stakeholders Meeting, held on September 12, 2025, aimed to diagnose sector challenges, identify opportunities, and draft a practical roadmap for its long-term development. The high-level meeting followed a closed-door session on September 10 at IAPAZ PRO SACCO’s flagship SMEs Incubation Hub in Harare, where the World Bank team engaged with cooperative leaders on mitigating currency risks through diversification into real estate.
IAPAZ PRO SACCO, boasting a loan book exceeding US$100,000 and real assets of US$350,000, was highlighted as a model for leveraging governance to expand from basic savings into impactful investments. “Cooperatives thrive on good governance and the delivery of tangible membership benefits,” said Samuel Makuvire, Treasurer of IAPAZ PRO SACCO. “We need to up our game on governance as a collective, I mean all stakeholders in the cooperative ecosystem.”
World Bank Senior Financial Sector Specialist Juan Buchenau stressed the sector’s potential as a vehicle for social and economic empowerment, while noting challenges around low visibility, limited adoption of fintech, and weak institutional capacity. “We are working with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Small and Medium Enterprises registry department; the effort to collect data is much bigger but the survey is star. We will do a survey, an important process that has to be inclusional and once the survey is done we will do some form of debriefing based on the initial results from the SACCOs themselves,” Buchenau said.
He added, “Advancing on the relation of the legislative part will be also a key step forward. A setup working group will be responsible for it, to come up with key steps forward and for this to be effective there is need to work in a very inclusive way through consultations.” On legislative reform, he noted, “Consultations work but with a limit because some would suggest for financial audits and some say we don’t need them, so there are set specific minimum requirements for SACCOs to operate appropriately.”
NASCUZ Voluntary Secretariat William Wizalamu highlighted the urgent need for a SACCO-specific law. “At the moment our law just groups financial cooperatives with other cooperatives. The best practice is when we compare with other countries, financial cooperatives have a dedicated Act or a SACCO-specific law.” He added, “Already that work is underway; the responsible Ministry is involved, even the RBZ together with the SADC, because there are already law models that the country could adopt, and they are working on that so that we have a SACCO-specific law in Zimbabwe.”
Representatives from RBZ and NASCUZ jointly acknowledged the World Bank’s diagnostic as a unified call to action. An RBZ official reaffirmed the bank’s commitment to reviewing the regulatory framework, promoting proportionality, and fostering innovation-driven growth. We Effect Program Manager Elijah Rusike added, “Our SACCOs seriously need to benchmark with regional and international SACCOs like Kenya and Guatemala on expected standard operating procedures in providing savings and corporate services to citizens.”
Wizalamu emphasized the need for capacity building and governance reforms. “Our challenge as SACCOs is on best corporate governance, and the meeting gave a solution for adequate training. We are ready to evolve into a stronger central body that can effectively serve our members through enhanced data benchmarking, shared services, training, and advocacy. The establishment of a dedicated training academy is a vision we fully support and will work tirelessly to achieve.”
He further noted, “We had the opportunity of assessing what we are doing well and not, and we are coming up with measures to achieve the SACCOs vision in the next 10 years of seeing the business model of saving and cooperatives financially impacting the nation. We need to increase public awareness through campaigns, critically involving the media on SACCOs, so that every Zimbabwean is aware of the SACCO philosophy and how we differ from other financial institutions.”
The meeting concluded with a small team tasked with finalizing a comprehensive diagnostic report, refining the action plan, and drafting a concrete reform roadmap, with deliverables expected within six weeks. This collaborative initiative marks a potential turning point, signaling a new era of structured growth for Zimbabwe’s SACCO sector.
SACCOs are non-profit financial cooperatives governed by elected boards and owned by their members. With an estimated 1,300 registered and unregistered SACCOs in Zimbabwe, their real interest rates are often below 12%, making them a competitive alternative to commercial banks.
