Program for Rural Outreach of Financial Innovations and Technologies (PROFIT)

The Program for Rural Outreach of Financial Innovations and Technologies (PROFIT) contributes to the reduction of poverty in rural Kenya. PROFIT's overall aim is to reach 287,750 smallholder farmers, artisanal fishermen, pastoralists, women, landless labourers and young people. The project is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Kenya. The project is managed by the Kenyan National Treasury.

PROFIT's overall objective is to increase the incomes of the target group by increasing their production, productivity and improve marketing in various rural enterprise sectors:

• Outcome 1: Improved sustainable access of poor rural households to a broad range of cost effective financial services;

• Outcome 2: Target group effectively manages assets, markets produce, leading to increased employment;

• Outcome 3: Efficient and cost effective use of the project and complementary donor resources to achieve the development objectives.

To achieve these outcomes, the project has three components:

1. Rural Finance Outreach and Innovation with its associated sub-components of Risk Sharing Facility (RSF) and Credit Facility (CF);

2. Technical Support Services with its associated sub-components of Business Support Services (BSS) and Financial Graduation; and

3. Programme Management.

As part of the PROFIT project, SNV implements capacity building activities to increase access and utilisation of financial services by smallholder producers and producer groups in Isiolo and Meru counties. The specific objectives fro SNV are:

1. To identify and analyse the financial literacy of livestock enterprises groups and their members in the Meru and Isiolo counties;

2. To identify financial service providers and services that can be used by the trained livestock enterprise groups and their members in the Meru and Isiolo counties;

3. To develop the capacity of the 8,250 members of livestock enterprise groups in Meru and Isiolo using identified capacity gaps and the financial services available in two years (by close of 2017);

4. To facilitate interactions between the informed communities and identified financial service providers, promoting up-take by at least one third of the trained members;

5. To monitor the training, linkage and utilisation of financial service by groups and members to ensure effectiveness in utilisation, fair gender inclusivity and institutional sustainability beyond the programme.

With this component, SNV in particular aims to reduce poverty for 8,250 smallholder farmers in livestock value chains within 2 years. To achieve this target, SNV will enhance their access to financial services through capacity building and technical support which will enable the farmers to develop and strengthen their agricultural enterprises. SNV provides training to the farmers to increase their financial knowledge. Using a Business Support Service Facility, SNV connects selected financial institutions with smallholder groups and allied agribusinesses to increase the uptake of an expanded range of financial services.