Affordable Rural Finance for Rural Resilience by sofopportunity

Congratulations, your project proposal is very interesting. Certainly the inability to access financial capital is a major constraint to socio-economic development, especially in rural areas. I understand that your project focuses primarily on lending for agricultural production development. Keep in mind that agriculture is a risky activity highly vulnerable to external factors, especially extreme weather events. The return on investment is based on crop productivity, which, as I understand not have any support or subsidy. How your project can reduce vulnerability? While you'll financing to farmers, they will not have backup or insurance on covering losses. About 80% of Malawi's population lives in rural ares, and 90% of this population bases its economy on agriculture. An extreme weather event, such as a drought, would strongly affect agricultural production. As a consequence the ability to save money in the population will decline and farmers would be unable to repay their loans; and they will have more debts because of interest rates. I suggest you to complement your project proposal with activities to help reduce the vulnerability of farmers to climate change; such as insurances or technical assistance in production.