A Consortium to support microfinance in Africa in the face of the Covid-19 crisis

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In the economic crisis linked to Covid-19, the occurrence of a liquidity and/or solvency crisis is proving to be one of the main risks facing microfinance institutions. To address this, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, the Microfinance African Institutions Network (MAIN), International Solidarity for Development and Investment (SIDI), and the ACTES Foundation are creating a consortium to better support the organizations they support in Africa.

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In April 2020, MAIN sent a questionnaire to all its members to assess their needs and determine what type of support the network could offer them. The results of this survey show that most of the institutions surveyed are experiencing difficulties managing their liquidity and are wondering how to continue to serve their clients sustainably in such a context.

It is within this framework that the Consortium was formed, which brings together the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, MAIN, SIDI, and the ACTES Foundation. The Consortium's objective is to provide the organizations it supports with risk analysis and management tools to better anticipate and manage the impacts of the crisis on their liquidity and solvency.

The Consortium will thus offer 50 microfinance institutions, including 31 partners of the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, mainly in West Africa and East Africa, support on the theme of liquidity risk management and solvency risk. The targeted organizations are mainly small institutions (Tier 3: loan portfolio < 10 million dollars), very present in rural areas.

The support will take the form of a cycle of three online training sessions for each institution, workshops, and personalized coaching provided by Senbumo. In addition to liquidity and solvency management, the institutions will be trained on the topic of business recovery following the Covid-19 crisis. The program will begin on July 6, 2020, and will last for six weeks.