Irish Potato Value Chain Financing (IPoVaF)

Within the 2 years of implementation, the IPoVaF project has built capacity of 64 cooperatives, comprising 26,629 smallholder farmers in 4 districts through training and coaching.

IPoVaF suffered from extended delays in operational project management. The project demonstrated high levels of efficiency in converting the activities into the expected outputs. SPARK is implementing the DA2F (Digital Access to Finance) Loan platform. The Loan Guarantee Fund de-risks for the pilot phase, 300 smallholder farmers’ loans and enables Moneyphone and the Equity Bank to offer loans at a lowest interest rate that would otherwise be considered too risky. The DA2F platform is a big step towards a more inclusive financial sector that supports the livelihood and wellbeing of smallholder farmers in Rwanda.