Final review of rural finances programme

Genesis was commissioned by the MasterCard Foundation to conduct an end-term evaluation of the Financial Services for Rural Communities and Smallholder Farmers in Africa programme.

This had been implemented over five years by Opportunity International’s operations in Malawi, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda and Mozambique with support from the MasterCard Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The last mid-term evaluation was conducted in 2011.

The aim of the review was to assess such components as agricultural value-chain financing; the use of innovative extension services and data capturing technology; the creation of low-cost points of operational presence in rural areas; and the use of technology to drive down the cost of these points of presence.

In addition to evaluating the success of the programme across these components, the review also investigated the performance, strategic added-value and scalability of new focus areas being implemented through the programme. These included education finance products and services targeted at education entrepreneurs and parents of learners.

It also included a partnership to leverage the Grameen Foundation’s network of community knowledge workers in order to provide extension services using Grameen AppLabs for technical support on mobile banking. The findings of the review were presented to stakeholders representing the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the MasterCard Foundation and Opportunity International.