VICOBA: Where financial inclusion meets leadership with women at the forefront

In the open plains of Meserani Ward, in northern Tanzania’s Arusha Region where the Maasai community has lived for generations, women are quietly reshaping long-standing traditions.

In Maasai communities, women have long faced limited recognition in public and economic life, but new forms of collective power are emerging. Small savings groups, known locally as Village Community Banks (VICOBA), are doing more than expanding incomes. They are reshaping who participates in decisions, who controls resources, and who leads.

For years, most women relied on small, irregular earnings that were difficult to grow and easy to lose, leaving little room to plan beyond daily survival.

In response, community-based savings groups started to gain popularity as practical pathways for women to pool resources, manage risk, and support one another’s ambitions. Building on these structures, the Women’s Leadership and Economic Rights at Local Levels (WLER) programme, supported by Finland, worked with local government authorities and civil society partners to strengthen an enhanced VICOBA model across six regions.

The approach connects financial inclusion with leadership development, rights awareness, advocacy on gender-based violence and collective action, transforming savings groups into community institutions where women can save, invest, organize, and lead.

To date, sixteen such groups have been established, laying foundations for longer-term social and economic change.

Eva Mrumbe knows this journey well. Born and raised in Meserani, she grew up in a patriarchal culture where women’s rights were rarely acknowledged.

“It was a little challenging, but we didn’t really consider it to be wrong then, it was just the norm,” she recalls.

Over time, those norms have slowly begun to shift, and after having her third child, Mrumbe realized that with rising household expenses, she needed to earn an income. It was then that her entrepreneurial journey began, and she started selling green vegetables at the local market.

In 2023, a Community Development Officer invited her to a training session organized by UN Women and the Tusonge Community Development Organization (TCDO). There, she was introduced to an enhanced VICOBA model, designed by TCDO under the WLER project to support women to save and access loans, as well as to build awareness on rights, women’s leadership and gender-based violence - while supporting their long-term growth.

A Practical Framework for Rural Women’s Empowerment

Through the initiative, Mrumbe was among over 400 women across WLER project regions who participated in training sessions on financial literacy and the VICOBA model. Following the training, she joined 22 other women to establish a VICOBA group in her community.

“The new VICOBA model ensures we don’t lose our savings, even when we’re unable to contribute. We now have a system that works and protects our investments,” Mrumbe explains.

In less than a year, she invested in poultry and livestock, while her group pooled funds to rent a tractor, reducing farm work from weeks to just hours. She also purchased a gas stove, cutting down the time she spends collecting firewood.

“VICOBA groups are more than savings associations. When women have access to tools, training, and collective structures, they’re not only able to strengthen their livelihoods, but also invest in productive assets and take greater leadership in household and community decision-making. This is the kind of transformation we aim to support,” said Ms. Erasmina Massawe, Programme Manager for the WLER project.

Catalysing Leadership and Inclusion

In a nearby ward, tailor Matilda Paul, who lives with a disability, formed a VICOBA group with 17 other women with disabilities and with their support, decided to run for a local government seat in the 2024 elections.

“As women with disabilities, we are often forgotten in decision-making so this prompted me to run,” said Paul, “I had no previous experience, however, and people didn’t really believe a woman with a disability could lead, so I wasn’t successful.”

Still, Paul says she learned a lot from the experience, and plans to run again in 2029. 

Thirty women who benefited from the VICOBA initiative under the WLER project contested in the 2024 local government elections, including 21 first-time candidates. Of these, 16 were successfully elected as village and hamlet chairpersons in the Arusha and Singida regions, including 12 from Maasai communities.

Yedi Lekule, Community Development Officer for Meserani Ward, has witnessed transformative changes in her community: “In addition to contesting for leadership, there are women who have been able to build homes and take their children to school,” she said, adding that she has also observed a significant increase in women’s agency over household financial decisions.

Driving Social Change from the Grassroots

For Mrumbe, Paul, and many others who have benefitted from the WLER project, the savings groups they have joined provide a sustainable source of financing they can rely on for years to come. Their duty now, they say, is to pass this knowledge on to others.

“I do my best to regularly share what I’ve learned with other women when I can,” says Mrumbe. “Whenever I’m in a group of 3-5 women, we talk about the VICOBA model, and I teach them how to establish their own groups. I’d like to see many more women benefit the way I did.”