Africa Cooperative Action Trust (ACAT) is a Christian rural community development agency working to empower disadvantaged rural people especially women and children to improve their quality of life wholistically.

ACAT was established in Swaziland in 1982, where the main focus was savings for farming inputs. However, in 2001, the concept of savings and credit was launched in ACAT in order to widen the savings scope.

From inception, ACAT’s approach to people development has always been based on the mobilization of people to form savings groups that meet on regular bases for purposes of weekly savings that are used to promote household food security and other Self Help activities. It is through such savings processes that the local authorities are involved to ensure and encourage their full participation in the development processes. ACAT uses participatory methods in her community development interventions. This is done in an effort to promote strong ownership by community beneficiaries for any intervention aimed at poverty reduction and increased impact of their work. With the growing HIV/AIDs incidence and high mortality rate in Swaziland, most traditional social safeguards are eroding, hence, mainstreaming of HIV/AIDS trainings and awareness creation in her programs to ensure people are given knowledge about this virus, is a must.