Mali : Kafo Jiginew
An unacceptable situation. Mali (11 to 12 millions inhabitants)
remains one of the poorest countries of the world. The main export product
is cotton and the fall in its world prices represents a great prejudice
for small growers. It is in southern MALI, a cotton growing area, that
Kafo Jiginew (union of granaries) set
itself up in 1987 as a network of
savings and credit units.
A population serving project. Initially the objective
was to set up a bank for the peasants which they would manage. It would
collect and store in secure places the local savings, make it fructify,
and use it to provide micro credits to peasants.
Today Kafo Jiginew offers two types of savings accounts:
one brings 3% on an annualized basis, the other a term account brings 4%
on an annualized basis. In addition the organization provides four kinds
of credit:
- campaign credits that meet the peasants needs in the period between two crops and enable artisans and merchants to make working capital loans.
- short term ordinary credits destined principally to the financing of commercial activities or other activities carried out by women.
- credits for the purchase of fertilizers
- equipment credits, the only ones running for longer than one year and used among other things to the purchase of farming equipment and to the construction or renovation of houses.
Micro credits bring results. SOS Faim has been working with Kafo Jiginew for 20 years. Since 1988, we support the development of equipment credits, used for the purchase and replacement of oxen and such equipments as carts and ploughs. They are also used for investments outside the agricultural area: dwellings, small stores…. Thus the peasants can improve significantly their living conditions and avoid sinking into poverty and famine when income from cotton growing falls.
We need you to carry on. Kafo Jiginew reached break even in 1995. Today, it grants over 97.000 credits, through 141 local Units of which 122 in rural areas.
To carry on our work we need Euros……
