Mozambique biggest challenge is to translate high GDP Growth (7-8% p.a) into improved well being of the whole population. Poverty reduction efforts and other social advances have not benefited everyone equally. One of the major bottlenecks for this inclusion is the almost non existence of financial services for small enterprises and farmers in the rural area.

Increase of employment, income and wealth of rural and urban poor in Northern Mozambique through increased availability of financial products tailored to their needs. Project Purpose: Increased economic involvement of poor men and women in agricultural and small business sectors.

• The access to proximity and diversified financial services by low income rural and urban men and women in Northern Mozambique is increased.
• The palette of financial services offered by the new micro bank will be diversified and include products targeting poor small men and women farmers and entrepreneurs to increase their assets and lift them out of poverty.
• The availability of well trained rural banking staff having the necessary skills and behavior for servicing those clients is increased for the whole financial sector.

FIDES financial systems development services Central Bank of Mozambique

The three high-potential, underserved client segments in the regional financial services market which have been identified are:

• The majority of the potential clientele consists of micro-entrepreneurs deploying self-employment strategies.
• Most smallholder farmers who sell their harvest at a low price at harvest time in order to cover debts and to gain access to working capital for dry season activities.
• Small entrepreneurs with more formalized businesses which employ up to ten people are less frequent, but are often very successful and constitute a slowly growing segment.

The previous phase has shown 70% of clients have increased and diversified their activities and most of them have increased their benefits. RCRN has created 43 village banks, 4 regional resource centres servicing 10’000 credit clients and 1’000 savings clients.