As one of the largest development agencies in Zambia, World Vision is a Christian relief and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families, and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. World Vision is dedicated to working with the world’s most vulnerable people, and serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.
Years of common market practice in Zambia had World Vision facilitating its cash and treasury requirements through a combination of paper-based processes and very simple systems and office packages that did not produce optimal levels of efficiency in key process areas within the accounting and finance functions. Even with operating budgets of over US$100 million, made up of cash and non-cash donations/gifts in kind, payments to finance field operations to carry out World Vision’s mission continued to be via cash and checks. At the National Office, processes such as financial reconciliations and report generation were time consuming and prone to error.
Citi has worked with World Vision for 21 years. Over the years, the two organisations have sought ways to enhance efficiency and productivity and reduce the risks that paper-based systems have posed to better manage donor expectations and see more funding support children and communities in Zambia.
Citi worked with World Vision Zambia on a solution to improve efficiency and security: An online banking platform to provide secure, integrated payments and reporting for World Vision’s local and foreign currency payments across Zambia. This new capability is positively contributing to World Vision’s efficiency and overcoming their challenges.
World Vision has significantly improved its financial efficiency, risk management, and cost effectiveness by moving from a paper-based system to a fully automated platform. Through CitiDirect, a web-based electronic banking platform, World Vision Zambia can free up resources that can go towards helping the beneficiaries in the communities it serves.
Through an end-to-end implementation project plan, Citi continues to partner with World Vision to create a more streamlined financial management process to enable the organisation to serve more children and families in Zambia.