Client: U.S. Agency for International Development
Duration: 2018-2023
Region: Sub-Saharan Africa
Country: Rwanda
Solutions: Economic Growth
By all accounts, Rwanda’s economic outlook is strong and positive. An increasingly attractive investment climate makes Rwanda a favorable environment for business startups, entrepreneurship, technology-driven businesses, and the private sector—and has the ability to deliver on the government’s promises of prosperity and opportunity for all its citizens. Despite this environment, structural challenges continue to constrain small and medium-sized enterprise growth and potential, particularly in critical areas such as access to finance, business growth and profitability, and job creation.
The Nguriza Nshore (“Lend so that I may invest”) Activity crowded-in finance (debt and equity) for the small firms that are not yet realizing the benefits of Rwanda’s strong economic performance, thereby driving economic growth and fueling non-farm rural employment for the next generation. By working with financial institutions, investors, public, and private sector business development service providers, and a variety of government ministries and initiatives, the DAI team—including partners BiD Network and Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE)—acted as a catalyst to strengthen and improve existing public-private platforms that support investment from international, local, bank, and non-bank sources, creating a better-functioning finance and investment ecosystem. Nguriza Nshore applied a gender, youth, and disabilities lens to expanding finance and investment—and worked to remove constraints that hamper those populations’ access to finance and lessen their ability to contribute to job growth.
The project raised $64 million in financing for small and medium agribusiness firms; $33 million in leveraged investment; and created 41,000 new jobs.
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