This intervention involves extending microcredit and agricultural loans to artisans’ groups, women organisations, market unions and agricultural cooperatives for on-lending to individual members or for the acquisition of common production facilities/equipment.
Loanable funds can be mobilised from existing financing windows including the CBN’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF), Nigerian Incentive-based Risk Sharing Agricultural Lending Scheme (NIRSAL) and Real Sector Support Facility (RSSF).
Objectives:
Microcredit and agricultural loan schemes are designed to facilitate the supply of loans to artisans, farmers, traders, etc. to expand their enterprises and create jobs.
Programme Design:
The operational elements of the scheme are as follows:
i. Affordable loan conditions with liberal repayment terms
ii. Group-based loans; and
iii. Monitoring.
Participants/Beneficiaries
The participants will be group-defined as follows:
i. Artisans’ associations (300 persons);
ii. Market unions (inclusive of women-only unions) 300 persons; and
iii. Multipurpose cooperative societies (inclusive of women-only cooperatives) - 900 persons.