Rural Finance

The interconnected nature of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) forces the development community to look broadly at solutions and outcomes. By drawing on evidence from systematic and comprehensive reviews, this report provides an overview of the evidence on 10 different intervention types related to agriculture and rural development, and how these intervention types have impacted seven different outcomes associated with SDG 1 (“End poverty in all its forms everywhere”) and SDG 2 (“End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”). The seven outcomes of interest are poverty, income, food security (measured by diet quantity), nutrition security (measured by diet quality and/or nutrition), child stunting, child wasting and agricultural productivity. There is a total of 79 systematic reviews included in this meta-review, including 18 reviews that look at poverty, 33 reviews that look at food security, 36 reviews on nutrition security, 24 reviews on stunting, 18 reviews on child wasting and/or overweight, 31 reviews on productivity and 48 reviews on income. For each intervention/outcome combination, a summary of the evidence is provided, including a designation of the direction of impact and the quality of evidence. We found that cash transfers and agriculture programmes are among the most widely
covered intervention types by systematic reviews, but other intervention types showed promising results. The costs and benefits of interventions were rarely studied in a rigorous way, hence the systematic reviews included here repeatedly note the need for more research to support decision-making for policies and programmes aimed at achieving SDGs 1 and 2. Another common message across intervention types is the importance of context in terms of determining the effectiveness of interventions. Given the number and diversity of interventions, outcomes and indicators, the goal is not to synthesize all the findings to say “what we know” about “what has worked”. Rather, by pulling together evidence that is customarily examined by intervention type or by outcome, we hope to encourage reflection on what it means to use evidence to inform agricultural and rural development programming to SDGs 1 and 2 and to identify implications for future impact evaluations and systematic reviews that are conducted with this goal in mind.

Many surveys carried out in last years in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) showed that one of the most important problems faced by farmers and rural entrepreneurs is the lack of and/or difficult access to financial resources. The paper aims at analysing rural finance and access to credit in south-eastern BiH. An exploratory survey was performed in March 2013 with 147 rural households from Vlasenica, Han Pijesak, Milici, Zvornik, Rogatica, Pale, Bratunac, Sokolac and Foca municipalities. About a half of the interviewees used loans for different purposes such as the purchase of agricultural equipment and machines, agricultural input, livestock and transport equipment and renovation of buildings but also for covering children education expenses or even for repayment of other debts. The interviewed rural households prefer borrowing from the formal sector (banks), followed by the informal sector (friends, relatives, private moneylender, supplier credits) then the semiformal sector (micro-finance institutions). Most rural people lack access to the range of financial services they need and those available to them are relatively costly or rigid. The interest rate is quite high and it is up to 12% yearly. The percentage of loan applications rejected is rather high. An important loan rejection reason is the lack of collaterals. Improving rural financial market in Bosnia has enormous potential to contribute to economic growth, poverty reduction and rural economy diversification. Therefore, public action and support is highly needed to make easier access to credits from formal institutions and to better structure and organise the semiformal financial sector.

This paper aims to introduce the methodology used by Unidad para el Cambio Rural (UCAR) in order to promote credit revolving funds for rural organizations.
Although there are many definitions for “revolving funds”, UCAR has implemented them as funds to capitalize organizations with no access to traditional financing. They are understood as a box of resources managed by an organization, that rotates between its members in the form of loans. These credits, both in money or inputs are used mainly to finance productive and commercial activities of the members of the organization.
Since 2011, UCAR has funded 54 projects of revolving funds, for close to $ 9 million, reaching a total of 2,000 producers in rural areas. This short but extensive experience has helped to strengthen these Funds as an instrument of public intervention, constituting a financial and social innovation.

Many surveys carried out in last years in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) showed that one of the most important problems faced by farmers and rural entrepreneurs is the lack of and/or difficult access to financial resources. The paper aims at analyzing rural finance and access to credit in southeastern BiH. An exploratory survey was performed in March 2013 with 147 rural households from Vlasenica, Han Pijesak, Milici, Zvornik, Rogatica, Pale, Bratunac, Sokolac and Foca municipalities. About a half of the interviewees used loans for different purposes such as the purchase of agricultural equipment and machines, agricultural input, livestock and transport equipment and renovation of buildings but also for covering children education expenses or even for repayment of other debts. The interviewed rural households prefer borrowing from the formal sector (banks), followed by the informal sector (friends, relatives, private moneylender, supplier credits) then the semiformal sector (micro-finance institutions). Most rural people lack access to the range of financial services they need and those available to them are relatively costly or rigid. The interest rate is quite high and it is up to 12% yearly. The percentage of loan applications rejected is rather high. An important loan rejection reason is the lack of collaterals. Improving rural financial market in Bosnia has enormous potential to contribute to economic growth, poverty reduction and rural economy diversification. Therefore, public action and support is highly needed to make easier access to credits from formal institutions and to better structure and organize the semiformal financial sector.

This paper aims to provide the overall state of rural fi nance in the Kosovo region, its status, the impact of credit lending, the role of banking institutions and governance in rural fi nance expenditures, and the improvement, barriers, and challenges throughout the years. The objective measure of access to rural fi nance is variable which help as to measure credit lending and the portfolio level of agriculture credit to fi nd managing in fi nancial institution performance. Therefore, the results show that the banks give more access than micro fi nance institutions at summation of large loans for agriculture, but at other side banks give less compared to micro fi nancial institutions at summation of small loans for agriculture.

Purpose- This study seeks to investigate customer’s attitude towards banking following Bank of Ghana’s banking sector cleanup exercise with
focus on market women in the Yilo Krobo municipality. This manuscript represents a starting base for similar researches to be conducted in
other selected municipalities in Ghana.

Methodology- The study considered both the primary data source which were obtained through the use of self-administered survey
questionnaires from a total of 198 conveniently selected market women in the Yilo Krobo Municipality of Ghana, and secondary data source
mainly through the review of existing literatures from journals, newspapers and articles.

Findings- The study revealed an opposing attitude towards banking among market women, as more than 70% of market women in the
municipality had their banks or financial institutions dissolved and for that matter losing their business capital and personal savings. This
position has resulted in only a few market women (18%) maintaining high confidence in the banking sector. The majority of market women
rated their confidence level as moderate (41%), low (33%) and no (8%), citing unpaid locked up funds, the fear of losing their savings again, loss
of trust and to some extent a suspicion of political interferences in banking activities in the country as reasons for their ratings.

Conclusion- It is recommended that, a similar exercise should not be carried out in the future as its ripple effects on customers can further ruin their trust completely in the banking sector. Furthermore, in the wake of dissolution of any institution, a much more attention should be given to how customers will be paid as early as possible to save their businesses and livelihoods.

A growing body of evidence shows that agriculture is no more sufficient to ensure sustainable rural development in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) therefore rural livelihoods diversification is crucial. Farm activity diversification issue can be considered in terms of resources (land, labor or capital), location (on-farm or off-farm) and output (farm or non-farm). Well-developed financial systems are associated with more rapid and inclusive rural development and foster rural economy diversification. The paper aims at analyzing rural livelihoods diversification in southeastern BiH with a particular focus on the influence of household financial management. The paper is based on an extended literature review and a questionnaire survey performed in March 2013 with 147 randomly selected rural households from nine municipalities in southeastern BiH. The majority of the surveyed rural households (68.7%) have mixed (farm and non-farm) livelihoods. Household sources of income are quite diversified and many rural households have different non-farm income sources. More than two-fifths of the surveyed households had an activity on development or started new non-farm businesses in the last five years. However, about a half of these gave up because of many problems such as the lack of financial resources and time. Weak business skills are also a limiting factor. Financial literacy is often lower in rural areas. Moreover, it is positively associated to education level and negatively correlated to age. It comes no surprise that well educated and young rural people are those who started more new diversification businesses during the last five years. They find it less difficult to deal with paperwork, bureaucratic procedures and administrative documentation needed to make request for loans. Effective household financial management, depending mainly on household head financial skills, plays a significant role in determining livelihoods strategies and diversification endeavors success.