Deepening of agricultural and rural development is a focal area of German development co-operation in Mali. The special initiative “One World – No Hunger” from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development aims to promote sustainable agriculture and food security. As part of this initiative, the BMZ invited KfW and GIZ to propose joint financial (KfW) and technical cooperation (GIZ) projects: the “global agricultural finance project” will provide financial cooperation funds explicitly linked to the “Green Innovation Centre” initiated by GIZ. In this context, KfW contracted IPC to conduct a feasibility study on the implementation of a rural financing programme via the financial sector in Mali.

IPC’s experts implement the following tasks:

• reviewing existing studies and statistics on rural and agricultural sectors, the legislative and regulatory framework, etc.
• identifying and interviewing relevant stakeholders (state, rural and agricultural sector, financial sector, development projects, suppliers, etc.)
• designing questionnaires for the on-location survey of rural and agricultural businesses and interviews with relevant stakeholders

• selecting and training students to conduct the interviews with agricultural and rural businesses
• monitoring interviewers and reviewing completed questionnaires
• conducting a survey of rural entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers: business models, profitability and financing needs
• identifying the most interesting agricultural value chains and interviewing the respective shareholders
• identifying existing financial institutions and their products, services, target groups etc.
• defining criteria for the selection of partner financial institutions
• identifying and meeting with financial institutions which would potentially be eligible for the implementation of the programme, including due diligence of their financial statements, portfolio data, branch network, products, etc.
• meeting with donors active in the rural financial sector, including IFAD and representatives of the GIZ Green Innovation Centre and other GIZ agricultural programmes
• analysing the data obtained through the survey and interviews
• developing recommendations for a sustainable approach to financial co-operation jointly with GIZ