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How Rafode is Changing Lives and Economies

Rafode
For many years, microfinance was viewed as one of the most successful means of raising individuals and communities out of poverty. In Myanmar, small and medium enterprises made up 99% of the country’s businesses. Most of those were, to no surprise, micro-businesses. In particular, the tool of microfinance was viewed as especially helpful to women. Yet, it turns out that studies found that microloans were not actually as impactful as many wanted them to be. The problem is that, because microloans are often given to those considered high-risk borrowers, high-interest rates are charged, making it difficult for those receiving the loans in the long run. The way to make microloans sustainable is by diverting the focus away from scalability and immediate returns. Rafode, a startup in Kenya, has done just that.

Headquartered in Kisumu, Kenya, Rafode is a “non-deposit taking Microfinance Institution.” With its main focus on women in rural communities, Rafode has successfully distributed over 40,000 loans, all with a value of around 700 million Kenya Shillings or $6.5 million. Relying on technology to deliver its products and services, Rafode has succeeded in reaching rural communities and uplifting both men and women through microloans.

Products and Services

Rafode has eight different products, all in the form of loans for different purposes.

  1. Inuka Business Loan: As a group loan, this is intended to encourage clients to create, upgrade or expand a business. This loan is the first step to receiving an individual loan and can range from 10,000 to 480,000 Kenya shillings.
  2. Masomo Loan: Dedicated to education, this loan is aimed to support a client’s family in receiving an education.
  3. Green Energy Loan: Working with other companies that provide green products, including Burn, Marathoner and Sunking, this group loan provides support for rural clients seeking access to affordable green energy products.
  4. Agribusiness Loan: As the name would suggest, this loan exists to specifically help small scale farmers in the agribusiness industry.
  5. Pamoja Loan: As another group loan, this works to support a group hoping to support its local economy.
  6. Emergency Loan: As an individual loan, the Emergency Loan serves to cater to the client’s emergencies, typically related to their business.
  7. Individual Business Loan: A more selective loan to receive, this loan exists exclusively for clients who already have businesses, and who already have businesses that are stable and have a reliable source of profits.
  8. Asset Loan: This final loan is self-securing. Providing real flexibility to clients, they gain the ability to finance movable assets and free up cash they might not have had before. Like the Individual Business Loan, this exists for clients who already are seeing their business profit, and hope to expand or grow it even more.

The Value of Microfinance

While conventional microloans have not been so effective, researchers have found that by providing microloans with little to no collateral, there are usually better results. Specifically, when given to women, these results are even more effective. This is because, especially in developing countries, microloans are among the only things that increase women’s decision-making power. In other words, microloans undeniably empower women.

So, Rafode’s efforts to give 85% of their microloans to women, focusing on rural communities and offering a plethora of different types of loans, all with very little collateral, have enabled this startup to do extremely impactful work that provides mutual benefits to the clients and back to the company. The most successful microfinance products allow flexible payment periods, individual liability contracts and one of Rafode’s main tools, the use of technology.

By believing in microfinance and adjusting to what will work by trusting in their clients, Rafode has raised individuals and families out of poverty, as well as revitalized economies in the process.

– Olivia Fish
Photo: Flickr

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Table Banking Empowers Women in Kenya

table banking in Kenya
Table banking is a group-based funding strategy in which members form groups where they can save and borrow money immediately during meeting times. The objective of the strategy is to help the poor, particularly women, fight poverty and stay financially sound. About 97 percent of table banking members in Kenya are women.

Members of a table banking group save money each time they meet from which they can take either short or long term loans. The repayment of these loans is what helps to grow the group’s revolving fund. Different groups have varying methods of how they can raise additional funds. Some tactics include investing in land, applying for grants from county governments or fining members for lateness and absenteeism.

How Table Banking is Different From Conventional Banking

Table banking in Kenya became popular among women because it made it easy for them to access loans without land. Additionally, it means that they no longer have to go through microfinance institutions to get loans. While table banking groups have similar principles as a guide, each group creates and agrees on their own rules such as which members can receive loans and what the terms of repayment are. This means that interest rates can be as low as 1 percent, compared to an interest rate of 12.39 percent in banks.

Another key difference between conventional banking and table banking is that when a member of a table banking group gets into difficulty in terms of repaying their loan, their group members assist them to overcome those difficulties. As the group members are dependent on and accountable to one another, the loan repayment rates tend to be high.

Benefits of Table Banking

Table banking has given women, who were once totally dependent on their husbands for everything, the ability to support their families as well. Women have been able to help out when it comes to paying school fees and rent as well as purchasing groceries and other household goods. The Joyful Women Organization (JOYWO) reports that as women increasingly become part of the source of income for their families, people no longer view them as liabilities. This has strengthened family bonds.

In addition to financing household activities, table banking in Kenya has enabled women to create small businesses or to expand their already existing ones. JOYWO, which is one of the most visible table banking movements in Kenya, has documented success stories of women who have put up rental houses and started small shops where they sell various items.

Table banking in Kenya has also given women the ability to buy and own land. Reports show that while women can constitutionally buy and own land, less than 7 percent of women have title deeds.

Women in Africa contribute between 60 percent to 80 percent of food, but they only have an estimated 5 percent access to agricultural extension services. The Global Report on Food Crises 2018 estimates that at least 25 percent of Kenya’s population is food insecure as a result of dry weather. As more women take ownership of land, they will be able to use their harvest as food to feed their families or as a means of income which will enable them to buy what they do not have at home, making their families food secure.

Conventional Banks are Taking Notice

The Central Bank of Kenya shows that women currently account for at least 82 percent of total savings in Kenya. Leading banks in the country are taking notice of the effects of table banking in Kenya and most of them now have group accounts to entice the various groups. Additionally, the banks are now reaching out to the various groups and offering them loans on friendly terms.

Table banking in Kenya has been a game-changer for women as individuals as well as for their families and it is going a long way in helping lift people out of poverty.

– Sophia Wanyonyi
Photo: Flickr

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The Role and Scope of Microenterprise in Developing Countries

The Role and Scope of Microenterprise in Developing Countries
Microenterprises — businesses with fewer than ten employees and often a sole proprietor — might not ordinarily come to mind when thinking of what drives an economy. However, in places where opportunity is most lacking, innovation abounds. In her course syllabus for a class entitled “Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries”, Stockholm University associate professor Birgitta Schwartz calls entrepreneurship fundamental to the organization of societies. She asserts that microenterprise in developing countries mobilizes people, resources and innovation. “It is about generating ideas, organizing and hands-on action that can have many different effects,” says Schwartz.

How Is Microenterprise in Developing Countries Unique?

The answer to this lies partly in motivation. For many Western societies, entrepreneurship eyes opportunity, while in developing countries, it is borne out of necessity. According to a 2017 report by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), 76.2 percent of Africans see entrepreneurship as a good career choice, as opposed to around 65 percent for developed nations like the United States.

What is the reason for this? Well, with factors like extreme population growth and an increasing life expectancy, keeping the working age constant means having to create many additional jobs. As a result, microenterprise in developing countries represents a large percentage of employment. In Ghana, for example, household or micro-businesses tally 57 percent of the country’s total workforce.

Added Challenges

While entrepreneurship presents challenges enough, the added factors associated with living in poverty create a special dynamic all its own. These challenges may include:

  • Adequate access to financing
  • The risk involved with political and economic imbalance, and
  • A lack of the skill set necessary to create a successful market

Lacking alternative sources of financing, the successful entrepreneur living in poverty may use internally generated cash flow from one business to fund his or her other businesses. Perhaps surprisingly though, research suggests that countries that have experienced economic instability are more likely to have higher rates of private saving. In a manner of speaking, crisis provokes a necessity to save.

Microenterprise may play more of a role in poverty alleviation than was previously thought. Entrepreneurs in developing countries look at risk differently. Whereas Western business strategy sees a competitive threat from the well-established incumbent businesses, such a threat doesn’t exist in developing countries. And while urbanization threatens this advantage, entrepreneurs look to the more rural areas of their country to start and grow their businesses.

Microenterprise in developing countries can be made even more difficult without the added benefits of mentorship and apprenticeship. Many of these emerging markets have few people with the necessary skills to effect the kind of change that can be the impetus for large-scale economic strides. With a lack of accountability, trust becomes even more important. Micro-businesses in these countries are often family-owned and much more attuned to the local market environment, which results in higher returns to capital and a larger potential for growth.

Success in Spite of Circumstances

An example of microenterprise at its finest is Hanan Odah, a Palestinian refugee whose husband died in the civil war in Syria. She rebuilt her micro-business, selling stationery and perfume and now helps her new community and her family of three to survive. Despite conflict and economic collapse, Odah continues to build her brand, thanks in part to a steely will and in part to microfinance programs that loan small amounts of money at low interest rates.

This is the kind of presence that microenterprises can have in developing countries. Whereas external forces may cause economic instabilities, small startups with low overhead and little opposition, like Odah’s, continue to thrive and grow.

Entrepreneurship in developing markets depends not necessarily on the traditional tenets of opportunity and vision, but rather on necessity and provision. For every stereotype of countless roadside stands selling nearly-identical wares, there is a provocative truth lurking beneath the surface of this dormant economic volcano.

– Daniel Staesser
Photo: Flickr

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Credit Access in Honduras is Steadily Improving Lives

A Look at Credit Access in HondurasMicrofinance has become an important tool for increasing credit access in Honduras for low-income people. Microfinance, or microcredit, entails banks lending small amounts of money at low interest rates. It is a great method to get loans to people living in poverty who have no credit history, little to no income, no collateral and often no education. This practice is particularly popular in the developing world.

The Current Situation

Without access to credit, savings or other basic financial services, over two billion people around the world are financially excluded. Increased credit access in Honduras and other developing countries enables poor families to earn a larger income, build their assets and cushion themselves from extra costs from external shocks like natural disasters. Poverty in Honduras is exacerbated by a consistent threat of natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes and land erosion.

In Honduras, 60 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line and the country has one of the lowest per capita incomes in Latin America. Credit access in Honduras is limited, especially in rural areas due to obstacles including high operating costs because of infrastructural deficiencies, a high level of risk due to the threat of natural disasters and a lack of flexible financial products and financial intermediaries that can cater to specific needs.

Improvements to Credit Access in Honduras

In 1989, a non-banking financial institution called FINCA was established in Honduras to provide banking services to people across the country, including loans, savings deposits, money transfer services and insurance. FINCA now has 21 branches and serves over 47,000 people in rural and urban areas of Honduras. The average loan is less than $800 and the institution’s loan portfolio amounts to over $21 million.

In 2014, the Rural Savings and Credit Union was formed in Honduras to provide these financial services in rural areas and offer flexible financial services based on individual negotiations and a deep knowledge of local communities and the businesses within those communities. Rural Savings and Credit Unions have promoted a more gender-inclusive market system, empowering women to participate in the economy to open small businesses and support their families financially. They are also sustainable and easy to replicate, ensuring a stable source of financial services to rural and poor areas in Honduras.

The Multilateral Investment Fund also approved a $200,000 technical assistance grant and a $3 million loan to the José María Covelo Foundation. The funds will allow the organization to pursue a project to improve the economic conditions of productive and entrepreneurial individuals in rural and peri-urban areas by increasing the microcredit supply in Honduras.

Real Life Results

Microcredit services like FINCA have helped increase poor people’s credit access in Honduras, enabling them to start small businesses and increase their incomes without having to go into major debt. For example,  62-year-old Consuelo Esperanza Rueda Aguilar has been able to start several businesses, from running a taxi service to selling a variety of different items ranging from cell phones to clothing to pots and pans. By utilizing FINCA’s services, Consuelo carefully invested her earnings to develop her entrepreneurial endeavors. She was also able to educate all five of her children and to buy a bigger house.

Models like FINCA and Rural Savings and Credit Unions strive to reduce poverty by increasing credit access in Honduras, providing economic opportunity for people in the most vulnerable settings and increasing economic empowerment by giving Hondurans the tools to become more financially stable.

– Sydney Lacey

Photo: Flickr

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Access to Credit in Madagascar Needs Improvement

Access to Credit in MadagascarAccessing one’s credit can be a difficult task when there is not much information provided on how to do so. Madagascar has a plethora of farmers due to its vast landscape, and agricultural production could be greatly altered in a positive way if the MFI, or Microfinance Institution, was able to offer accommodating microfinance loans.

According to a report from the University of Göttingen, “agricultural firms with flexible microfinance loans have significantly higher credit access probabilities than non-agricultural firms and agricultural firms with standard microfinance loans.” Access to credit in Madagascar can be greatly improved by supplying the population with particular loans that allow them to enhance their financial stabilities.

Access to microcredit has a profound impact on Malagasy people. As The Guardian writes, “Microfinance is seen as a vehicle to help Madagascar attain some of its millennium development goals, particularly on eradicating extreme poverty.” Approximately 85 percent of the nation’s population lives on less than $1.25 a day. Credit availability in Madagascar has been able to create severe advancements for small businesses and provide a higher income for the average Malagasy family.

Since most individuals are without access to credit in Madagascar due to their financial status, providing goods for the family and bringing in a steady income can be very difficult. Many rely on informal moneylenders who charge annual interest rates anywhere from 120 to 400 percent for unsecured loans.  These numbers are astronomical compared with the MFI’s average rate of 36 percent for the same period, equating to two to four percent a month.

Extremely high interest rates can be very dangerous for people who do not make enough money to continually make payments every month. Supplying the Malagasy citizens with microfinance loans would give them the opportunity to discontinue their relationships with informal moneylenders and ultimately save additional money for other necessary goods.

However, a country that mainly relies on farming can be slightly strenuous for the MFI. It can provide the people with loans to help supply their agricultural needs, but when the weather does not cooperate with the proper farming conditions, these loans can then be used for other purposes. This is what the institutions do not want to happen. According to Serge Rajaonarison, Chief Executive Officer of the Caisse d’Epargne et de Crédit Agricole Mutuels de Madagascar, by accurately determining the “areas and farmers affected by hailstorms, for example, we can subsequently compensate according to the losses caused.”

The prime concern for the MFI is for its loans to be paid back by the people of Madagascar. Even after the country is devastated by severe weather events, the MFI continues to obtain its money back from those who were given loans. Continued payments by the people and being able to provide a better life and workplace for the community will allow the MFI to implement a strategy that will give everyone access to credit in Madagascar.

– Matthew McGee

Photo: Flickr

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10 Solutions to Global Poverty That Can Be Implemented Today

solutions to global poverty
Nearly half of the world’s population lives at or below the poverty line; out of the 2.2 billion children in the world, one billion of them live in poverty. Though this issue may not be as prevalent or visible in the U.S., it is an issue that affects everyone. Small steps can be taken to better this problem, leading to possible solutions to global poverty.

  1. Properly Identifying Issues
    One of the largest issues involving poverty is the inability to properly identify contributing factors at the micro and macro level. Many organizations assume that local aid alone will better the problem, but it is only with the combined efforts of local, state and national governments that poverty will lessen.
  1. Allocating Proper Time and Resources
    Preventable diseases such as pneumonia claim the lives of nearly two million children per year. Without proper planning, which includes allocating enough time, money and volunteer work, global poverty will continue to exist. Currently, the U.S. spends only about one percent of the federal budget on foreign aid. By creating detailed plans and projects aimed at helping other nations, global poverty will begin to lessen.
  1. Creating organizations and communities to work locally
    Enacting policy is not the only solution to global poverty, as policy often does not affect those suffering directly. As previously stated, efforts must come from both local and federal domains. Essentially, while policy is created to change legislation, local organizations enact the changes, directly helping those in need. On top of that, working with entire communities instead of specific individuals has been proven to be more effective.
  1. Creating Jobs
    Creating jobs in poverty-ridden communities allows individuals to pull themselves out of poverty. This solution to global poverty is arguably one of the most effective. Federal governments can achieve this by rebuilding their infrastructures, developing renewable energy sources, renovating abandoned housing and raising the minimum wage.
    By raising the minimum wage in existing jobs, companies would combat recent inflation in both developed and developing countries. This change in the states (in places such as Seattle and Washington) has been shown to reduce poverty.
  1. Providing Access to Healthcare
    Unpaid medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy. Having access to free or affordable healthcare would allow families to allocate the money they would normally spend on healthcare elsewhere.
  1. Empowering Women
    Female empowerment in developing countries often comes from organizations that work to reduce poverty by allowing them to take leadership positions and advance socially and economically.
  1. Microfinancing
    Microfinancing provides improvements to socioeconomic status by providing access to more, larger loans, providing better repayment rates for women, as they are less likely to default on their loans than men and extending education programs for loan-payers’ children. It can also improve health and welfare by providing access to clean water and better sanitation, create new jobs and teach developing countries to be more sustainable.
    Microfinancing continues to prove that even the smallest amounts of credit can be one of the many solutions to global poverty.
  1. Provide paid leave and paid sick days
    Paid maternal and paternal leave allows families to save money after childbirth, as having a child is a leading cause of economic hardship. Furthermore, giving workers paid sick days allows them to properly get over their illness without worrying about missing a paycheck or receiving a paycheck with fewer funds than normal.
  1. Supporting equal pay for men and women
    Closing the wage gap between men and women would reduce 50 percent of poverty experienced by women and their families. This would also add money to the nation’s gross domestic product.

Global poverty has proven to be an unruly, frustrating cycle, but eradicating it is within our means. These solutions to global poverty can and should be implemented to begin the end of poverty.

– Chylene Babb

Photo: Flickr

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Assessing Credit Access in Morocco

Assessing Credit Access in MoroccoMorocco is a North African country bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the north. Its economy relies largely on vibrant services and agricultural sectors for growth, and after experiencing a severe drought in 2016, the latter sector has bounced back in 2017. The industrial sector, however, has yet to see significant investment or growth.

According to the Moroccan government’s own estimates, extreme poverty has been eradicated in recent years. The percentage of the population living below the national poverty line was around 4.8 percent in 2014.

One signal of a healthy economy is access to credit. Below are some of the current strategies for improving credit access in Morocco.

Agricultural Credit Access in Morocco: The “Meso-Credit”

As is the case in many countries, rural areas in Morocco have a tougher time gaining access to credit — oftentimes, their residents don’t even bother trying. Innovations for Poverty Action reports that 50 percent of the rural households surveyed indicated that they needed credit in the previous year but never actually requested it.

To meet the needs of the 40 percent of Moroccan farms that are midsized, the Group Crédit Agricole du Maroc offers an innovative “meso-credit” portfolio. Midsized farms are considered too small to take a traditional banking approach but too large for a microfinance approach. Meso-credits are generally loans given to agricultural small and medium enterprises (SMEs) consisting of less than €9,300, with good success and repayment rates.

When the midsized farms can access credit, they can survive, thrive, expand and hire, which ultimately will reduce rural poverty in the area.

The World Bank’s Contribution

In May 2017, the World Bank announced a $350 million program to fund financial intermediation reforms in Morocco.

The program has four main goals:

  1. Support new sources of financing for SMEs
  2. Tighten oversight of the banking sector,
  3. Encourage capital market development by increasing the range of investment tools and protecting Moroccan investors
  4. Invest in the civil service pension fund to keep it solvent

Low-income households are expected to benefit from these reforms, as are female entrepreneurs. The reforms allow women to gain access to more sources of financing and electronic payment systems, which remove social and economic barriers that previously stood in the way of women.

The Takeaway

Many projects are underway to help improve Moroccan investors’ access to credit in a responsible and growth-oriented way.

Hopefully, these efforts—and others like them—will improve credit access in Morocco, get development projects off the ground and lift even more Moroccans out of poverty.

– Chuck Hasenauer

Photo: Flickr

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Financial Inclusion a Key Part of Credit Access in India

Credit Access in IndiaThe evolution of credit has sanctioned simply the idea of money as an invisible but powerful force. In a place where poverty still affects 22 percent of the population, credit access in India is difficult for many of its people. Often, formal credit is as elusive for the people of India as its tangibility.

PMJDY and Financial Inclusion
Though financial inclusion has become a recent focus for policymakers, 40 percent of people still lack access to basic financial services. Financial inclusion is the basis of perpetual economic growth. “Without financial inclusion, we cannot think of economic development because a large chunk of the total population remains outside the growth process,” said Dr. Harpreet Kaur and Kawal Nain Singh of Punjabi University and The Rayat Institute of Management.

Many low-income individuals have relied on informal, and sometimes devastating, options to borrow money or gain credit access in India. In response to this, formal options such as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), a mega financial inclusion plan, was designed. PMJDY aims to ameliorate poverty and fast track financial growth. The program targets those from remote areas and promotes financial literacy, universal access to banking services and insurance. This is all to “commence the next revolution of growth and prosperity,” the plan explains.

Unfortunate Faults
More than a few studies have reported the same findings as Dr. Joy Deshmukh-Ranadive of the Human Development Resource Centre in New Delhi. In the doctor’s report on rural micro-finance in India, she explains that “the track record of these formal sources has not been positive. Micro-finance…circumvents the drawbacks of both formal and informal systems of credit delivery.” These downsides include exploitative interest rates and fortifying systems of oppression.

Entrepreneurship in Rural India
The micro, small and medium enterprise sector (MSME) account for 37 percent of India’s GDP, and more than 40 percent of the country’s total exports, according to the World Bank. Despite this, MSMEs have been limited by inadequate access to financial services.

Fortunately, the International Finance Corporation devised a program called India Collateral. The program is modeled after a similar program that has had success in China. The project hopes to revise the discrepancy by opening access to banking services for more MSMEs by increasing lenders’ confidence.

While there are programs formulated to improve access to credit in India, there remains a gender bias. Though loan rejection and approval are issued at an equal rate to both men and women, women tend to seek financial services less often. Higher gender bias countries like India see more women deferring from the loan process, according to a report by the European Central Bank.

It is an interesting paradox: those who have money are those who typically qualify to borrow it. The necessary condition for credit access is already established finances. Those who stand to benefit the most from borrowed money are those who do not have it. Steps toward financial inclusion in India are governed by this idea. Many programs continue to amend credit access in India, develop the informal credit market and lower interest rates in the hopes of developing the country’s economy from the bottom up.

– Sloan Bousselaire

Photo: Flickr

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Credit Access in Turkey

TurkeyIt can be difficult to get investment projects off the ground when potential investors themselves cannot access credit. Without investment projects, it becomes difficult to lift people out of poverty, so the issue itself is critically important to The Borgen Project.

So, how does the current picture look regarding credit access in Turkey?

Turkey boasts the second-largest banking system in Emerging Europe, after Russia. The term “Emerging Europe” refers to poorer economies in central, eastern and southeastern Europe. Think Serbia and Albania, not Germany or France.

The Turkish system is highly liquid and well-capitalized, granting it great flexibility to lend financing to investors looking to develop the region. There are many viable options for those looking to get a loan in Turkey.

Turkey’s system supports three types of banks: standard deposit banks, development and investment banks and participation banks. Any of these may grant loans in the form of cash, non-cash or interest-free (i.e., participation) loans in local or foreign currency. Leasing and factoring companies are also an option and several international development banks also provide funding. The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) are two such entities.

In 2016, the World Bank reported that Turkish bank account, debit card and credit card ownership were at an impressively high level, which tends to indicate access to finance. As of then, the country had also recently increased its rate of savings, which bodes well for future credit access. However, the data show that women continue to have less access to credit than men, despite progress being made.

Just this past September, Reuters reported that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called for banks to open credit access in Turkey for investors and to lower their interest rates. Erdogan strongly opposes high-interest rates and wants to pressure the banks—especially state banks—to makes this change.

According to Hürriyet Daily News, this comes after Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Șimșek announced earlier this year the creation of a new Credit Guarantee Fund that allows crafts and tradespeople easier access to financing. Bloomberg reports that policymakers don’t intend to expand that fund despite the growth it has already sparked. Time will tell whether that is a good move.

Hopefully, the overall increase in lending power will spur even more investment and growth in Turkey and serve as an example to other nations struggling with high levels of poverty.

– Chuck Hasenauer

Photo: Flickr

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Islamic Microfinance in Sudan Helping to Reduce Poverty

Innovation: Islamic Microfinance in Sudan Helping to Reduce PovertyMicrofinance has become a crucial poverty-alleviating tool over the years, as it provides small loans to impoverished people lacking access to traditional financial services. Across the globe, microfinance institutions work towards tackling poverty and aiding poor people to develop their small businesses, which later can provide them with a regular income and give them the ability to sustain themselves. Those financial services are meant to target poor borrowers who have no collateral and would not otherwise qualify for a standard bank loan.

However, one of the challenges faced by Microfinance institutions is providing Microfinance services to Muslim countries under sharia or Islamic law, which limits the amount of interest that can be charged on loans. Therefore, a vast majority of Muslims refuse using traditional microfinance services because they are not sharia-compliant, meaning they are not in line with sharia law. This has led to the creation of Islamic microfinance, which is slowly gaining recognition among Muslim communities for reducing poverty and promoting business development.

Islamic microfinance in Sudan has become a government-mandated rule, due to their banking system being fully Islamic. Some of the applied sharia principles include risk-sharing, leasing and interest-free “loans.” Since 2006, the Sudanese banking sector has experienced the implementation of 10 microfinance institutions, the establishment of microfinance “windows” in 12 banks and the creation of “micro” products available for poor clients in five insurance companies. All of these new innovations have led to positive outcomes within the Islamic economy.

One of the positive effects of Islamic microfinance is improving financial inclusion for small farmers in Sudan. In 2010, the World Food Program partnered with microfinance institutions to launch an initiative that linked 3,000 farmers to markets and sources of financing in three Sudanese states. Two years later, this program has increased its influence to nine states, which has helped a total of 150,000 farmers.

Islamic microfinance in Sudan has led to many successes for the Sudanese community and Muslim states in general. Some of the benefits include economic growth, poverty reduction and better financial inclusion for those deprived of financial services. Not only does it enable the development of small businesses for the poor, but it also helps meet the needs of Muslim communities who refuse to use conventional financial services for religious reasons. Islamic microfinance still has a long way to go, as it has not yet reached enough Muslim communities. For example, in Sudan, only eight percent of the total population – estimated at 7.2 million – is benefiting from sharia-compliant financial services. However, since it increased its reach dramatically in such a short span of time, this brings hope for the improved success of Islamic microfinance in the near future.

– Sarah Soutoul

Photo: Flickr