Agriculture Finance in the DRC Your Impact Report, Spring 2024 OUR GRATITUDE A new year, a new opportunity to reach more smallholder farmers in the DRC, a new chance to say thank you for your unwavering support of and belief in the people of the DR Congo.
THE SOLUTIONS Opportunity International’s staff and financial institution partners continue to see that Opportunity’s proven three-pronged model of training, access to financial resources, and support is foundational to longterm success; partnerships with trained financial institutions, well-equipped Farmer Support Agents, and financial products are key components.
PROGRESS ON OUR WORK As you know, Farmer Support Agents (FSAs) are local farmers who have been successful and are willing to train and help other farmers to succeed as well. As of November 2023, we have 90 Farmer Support Agents (FSAs) supporting 16,680 registered farmers within the Gemena/Karawa area—53% of whom are women—and 60 FSAs in Kasai. FSAs continue to be trained in financial literacy and ag best practices, so they can share those lessons with their network of farmers. Current training modules include group dynamics and savings groups methodology. ► In Gemena and Karawa, FSAs have connected 350 farmers with VisionFund for group lending products. ► The FSAs in Karawa have completed registration of their farmers. ► Farming training manuals have been translated into French and Lingala. ► We have expanded the teaching module on “Farming as a Family Business” to include ag-adjacent business best practices and rebranded it “Family Business and Entrepreneurship.” ► Luke Coulson, Opportunity’s Director of Client Services, is testing StarLink as a mobile hotspot to aid in the syncing of teaching and program materials onto digital devices for use by the FSAs. VisionFund field banking agents also should be able to use this improved connectivity to reach more clients.
► In the Kasai region, Chantal Ngwalo, Farmer Support Agent Network Project Officer, onboarded 60 Farmer Support Agents who are projected to support 9,000 farmers; farmers are registering via CommCare. The team is working on the best way to communicate that information on registered farmers to local banks (EquityBCDC) to identify clients who are bankable.
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