| Overview : The Ethiopian Financial Inclusion Project was initiated based on two independent yet complementary studies - the Agricultural Finance Diagnostic conducted in 2010 and Review of the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) at the end of 2009. Insights from these two studies led to the initiation of a pilot for a countrywide savings mobilization & financial services provision effort. It has sought to test and demonstrate that savings-led financial services can be provided successfully and sustainably in rural areas, allowing poor households to build assets, and helping to finance agricultural production. To achieve sufficient volume and impact, the project initially leverages two ongoing initiatives – the PSNP and Agriculture Growth Programme (AGP).
The project aims at fostering financial inclusion in rural Ethiopia by equipping financial partners (banks and micro finance institutions (MFIs)) with appropriate technology and know-how to sustainably distribute adequate and affordable financial services to the rural population while ensuring their uptake and use.
The core idea of the project is:
a) To deploy point of sale (POS) devices (or other technology-enabled) transaction points, such as mobile phones) to moveable branches and eventually agents of financial partners in rural areas; and
b) To successfully deploy and market relevant financial products to the poor, guaranteeing their use.
This should allow financial partners to service a larger number of transactions and products (e.g. savings accounts, deposits/withdrawals, remittances, payments) much more efficiently and effectively than would be possible using the current manual processes. The project aimed at covering most woredas in the 4 identified target regions (Amhara, Tigray, Oromia, SNNPR) by the end of April 2014. This includes in particular woredas with high agricultural potential (known as AGP woredas) as well as food insecure woredas that are supported by the PSNP. It is expected that the financial needs of different market segments in both types of woredas will lead to a differential financial offering...... |
