Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution SC (DECSI) is a

microfinance Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings ...

institution operating in

Tigray Region The Tigray Region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, is the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob, and Kunama people. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray is ...

, in northern

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

. With over 460,000 customers, the DECSI is one of the four largest MFIs in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

History

In 1993, the

Relief Society of Tigray The Relief Society of Tigray (abbreviated REST; ti, ማሕበራዊ ረዲኤት ትግራይ or ማረት, ''Maret'') is an NGO based in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. REST was founded in 1978 as an organisation providing relief efforts to civ ...

(REST), the main NGO in the region, launched a socio-economic poverty survey in rural areas. Lack of access to credit appears as one of the major obstacles to the rehabilitation of the region and its development.http://www.sosfaim.org/pdf/en/zoom/ZoomDecsiEng.pdf{{Dead link, date=July 2019 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes A program of credit is created to help increase agricultural production, stimulate the local economy, reduce the influence of moneylenders and increase incomes of the poor. The first operations began in 1994 and the organization will be legally recognized in 1996 as part of the first law on microfinance in Ethiopia enacted that year. During its growth DECSI received financial support from Novib (Netherlands), Norwegian Peoples Aid and

SOS FAIM is a Morse code distress signal (), used internationally, that was originally established for maritime use. In formal notation is written with an overscore line, to indicate that the Morse code equivalents for the individual letters of "SOS" ...

References

External links

Institutional website of DECSIEURONEWS'reports on DECSI
Companies of Ethiopia Microfinance organizations Tigray Region