Rural Finance

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.

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.

Savings are essential for protecting and boosting the assets of rural populations. The paper analyses rural households' saving strategies in eastern Bosnia. It is based on a secondary data and primary information collected by a questionnaire survey carried out in March 2013 with 147 rural households from nine municipalities in eastern Bosnia. The questionnaire focused on saving purposes; access to various saving means, including formal and semi-formal ones; membership in and management of saving/credit groups; and reasons for using formal money deposits (banks). The formal and semiformal sectors are currently not meeting the demand for financial services of all rural households. Survey results showed that 72.8% of respondents prefer keeping their savings as cash at home. Savings are also kept in form of livestock, precious metals and jewellery or invested in buildings. Access of rural households to appropriate saving services is of paramount importance for rural livelihood diversification in Bosnia.

O funcionamento do sistema financeiro tradicional leva à exclusão de determinadas categorias: população de baixa renda, microempresas, pequeno produtor rural etc. A intervenção pública, por meio dos bancos oficiais, acaba não resolvendo o problema, tanto por questões de alcance como de eficiência. O microcrédito surgiu no mundo como uma tentativa de eliminar a pobreza pelo acesso ao crédito, recorrendo a estratégias descentralizadas de financiamento. O objetivo deste artigo é discutir o mecanismo do microcrédito; os meios utilizados para se atingir o público-alvo e garantir a qualidade dos ativos; e as formas de gestão que fazem que essas instituições prosperem onde o sistema financeiro falhou. Esta análise pretende subsidiar discussões sobre a reformulação do financiamento rural na economia brasileira.