Operating costs are low
Rojiroti members organise and manage their own groups
Rojiroti is embedded within the community
Rojiroti has approximately 20,931 members, with about 4,000-5,000 borrowers at any time. Operating with only 32 staff, who have no technical agenda or commitment to a particular development agenda, Rojiroti responds entirely to members needs.
It is able to do this with very few overhead costs. For example, transport is predominantly by bicycles and bikes, which staff buy themselves and there is only one office building which is located within one, and close to the other villages in which Rojiroti operates. The fact that staff members often support groups in the locations they live, or nearby, also reduces travel time and costs.
Supported by CPSL, Rojiroti has always had an efficient management information system and has kept pace with appropriate technical developments in remote communication and data management.
Rojiroti is embedded within the community
Rojiroti members organise and manage their own groups
Rojiroti is embedded within the community
All Rojiroti staff members are part of the same community that they seek to serve and the governing body of CPSL is largely made up of members of this community.
By agreement, staff remuneration is based on financial turnover of each individual's groups that they support. This gives good medium term security in that staffing costs are linked to borrowing activity and sudden fluctuations in loan uptake do not immediately lead to unmet staffing costs.
Rojiroti's monthly staff meeting, open to all members, ensures a direct line of communication between staff and members, enabling adaptive and flexible programming, which makes Rojiroti resistant to shocks (e.g. COVID-19), because they always have an accurate and updated picture of exactly what their members can contribute and need.
Rojiroti members organise and manage their own groups
Rojiroti members organise and manage their own groups
Rojiroti members organise and manage their own groups
Rojiroti members organise and manage their own groups, analysing their livelihood and financial needs and sharing information.
Most groups are well established so they don’t need Rojiroti staff to join their meetings. With new groups staff facilitate meetings. However, all staff meet with group leaders once a week. They also make contact by phone, with nearly all groups having access to a phone (a huge change in the last 5 years).
This approach, where groups make their own decisions about loans, enhances group solidarity and coordination. This puts the group's credibility at stake, and is an important factor in ensuring that more than 99% of loans successfully repaid and revolved for use by Rojiroti's network. The autonomy of groups is a key factor that enables the wide variety of loan uses, but maintains a very high loan recovery rate.