Beyond the ROSCA: Mapping the Institutional Diversity of Community Group Savings and Lending (CGSL) Mechanisms in Post-Conflict South Sudan

Community group savings and lending (CGSL) in South Sudan is often described through the familiar category of the Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA). This article argues that such a description is too narrow. Drawing on a mixed-methods thesis dataset from Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei and Lakes States, the paper maps CGSL as a diverse institutional ecology that combines rotating savings, village savings and loan associations, savings and internal lending committees, welfare funds, NGO-facilitated micro-lending, village-bank practices and cooperative forms of social collateral. The study used survey data from 81 valid respondents out of a target sample of 85, supported by qualitative interviews with 17 participants. Descriptive findings show that 69% of respondents were male, 31% female, 68% primarily engaged in farming and 53% active members of savings groups. Across the three states, the strongest perceived service areas were government-donor collaboration, alternative access to credit for the poor, small regular saving, savings mobilisation and VSLA-type intervention. Hypothesis testing indicated a statistically significant association between CGSL participation and agricultural productivity indicators, χ² = 15.92, df = 2, p = 0.0001. Logistic regression further showed that access to CGSL credit significantly influenced the decision to invest in modern agricultural technologies, β = 1.9459, p = 0.026, with an estimated odds ratio of about 7.00. The qualitative themes revealed CGSLs as holistic support systems, capacity-building platforms, alternative financial systems and NGO-dependent but locally meaningful institutions. The article concludes that policy should move beyond treating ROSCAs as a single informal practice and instead build a graduated rural finance architecture that links self-managed savings groups to extension services, risk protection, formal financial institutions and conflict-sensitive agricultural development.