Field Officer Training Guide

The FO is a paid employee who starts by working directly to create VSLAs and, managed by a full-time Supervisor, takes on a training caseload of between 10 and 15 VSLAs. The Field Officer is given this responsibility because the first VSLAs created in a community will set an example and it is important that they should be successful and operate in the correct way. That is why it is more important to focus much more on the quality of these first VSLAs than it is to create a large number.

This resource is a 2-part series, both included: the first to be used by Field Officers (FOs) and the second by Village Agents (VAs):

• FOs are paid employees of a Facilitating Agency (FA) or its partner organisations, who create and train Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs)
• VAs are community-based trainers who are not paid employees of the project

We have developed the manuals in order to provide straightforward guidance to FOs and VAs on how to train VSLAs, reduced to the essentials. We have deliberately avoided suggesting a step-by-step training system, since implementing organisations may have their own pedagogical approach. Rather, we have specified what needs to be achieved and have focused more on group-level outputs and procedures.