SAFE: A New Project in Ethiopia
The “Strengthening Agricultural Finance in Ethiopia (SAFE)” is a 5-year program (2018 – 2022), that will be implemented by ICCO in collaboration with the Church of Sweden. The aim of the project is to improve income and gender equitable wealth creation for rural poor through sustained value chain support of selected high-value commodities and strengthen agricultural finance in West Gojjam and Awi Zones of Amhara region.
SAFE will increase and improve access to finance and non-financial services for poor people living in rural areas, with a special focus on women, youth and smallholder farmers. Rural Savings and Credit Cooperatives (RuSACCOs) unions will be capacitated to increase outreach in remote rural areas in a professional and responsible way.
Hence, one of the elements in the intervention is to support the unions in development of financial services tailored to women, youth and smallholder farmers to increase their access to finance in areas where MFIs have limited outreach. In addition to the RuSACCO unions, the project will engage MFIs for tailored made agri-financing.
SAFE will also provide different non-financial services to the targeted communities. For this to be effective, the project will facilitate value chain development process for dairy and animal fattening value chains and provides support for other high-value agricultural commodities value chain development. This requires empowering targeted communities (women, youth and other smallholder farmers) to become active value chain actors and maximize their benefits from the targeted value chains.
Photos credits: Gregorio Cunha
The “Strengthening Agricultural Finance in Ethiopia (SAFE)” is a 5-year program (2018 – 2022), that will be implemented by ICCO in collaboration with the Church of Sweden. The aim of the project is to improve income and gender equitable wealth creation for rural poor through sustained value chain support of selected high-value commodities and strengthen agricultural finance in West Gojjam and Awi Zones of Amhara region.
SAFE will increase and improve access to finance and non-financial services for poor people living in rural areas, with a special focus on women, youth and smallholder farmers. Rural Savings and Credit Cooperatives (RuSACCOs) unions will be capacitated to increase outreach in remote rural areas in a professional and responsible way.
Hence, one of the elements in the intervention is to support the unions in development of financial services tailored to women, youth and smallholder farmers to increase their access to finance in areas where MFIs have limited outreach. In addition to the RuSACCO unions, the project will engage MFIs for tailored made agri-financing.