Rural Finance and Enterprise Development Programme

The programme will work on a nationwide basis to improve the effectiveness of rural financial institutions, intensify entrepreneurial activity to stimulate the rural economy, and provide poor rural people with more efficient access to credit and savings. It will lead to improvements in the business and financial sectors through reforms of policies regulations, legislation and processes, and it will build the capacity of the public and private sectors and civil society.

The IFAD loan will support the programme's efforts to reduce poverty, increase incomes and contribute to the overall economic development of poor rural households. The most vulnerable and marginalized rural people are one of the main target groups, and they include subsistence producers, households affected by HIV/AIDS, and orphans and children who are heads of households. But the programme will also provide support to active poor households that can seize income-generating opportunities, and households that want to develop small-scale enterprises.

To foster participation by women, young people and vulnerable groups, the programme will adopt two approaches at the local level:

linkage banking between formal and informal finance institutions
partnerships focusing on access to financial services with teams of Swaziland's National Emergency Response Committee on HIV/AIDS, which will also provide social support

For some of the targeted groups, expected benefits include increased incomes and savings and the scaling up of small enterprises. Overall benefits include access to rural financial services, more appropriate loan products, the possibility of establishing a credit history and a reduction in transaction costs for banking and services.

Source: IFAD

Additional Data