At PearlMutual, we are driven by our desire to achieve our social impact goals, one of which is to facilitate the growth of Nigeria’s food production capacity. Our commitment to Agriculture is made evident by our participation in a project to improve the bankability of Agri-businesses in Nigeria in partnership with AGRA and SCOPEinsight.
In our role as local business development experts, we are facilitating the adoption of the standardized SCOPEinsight Agribusiness Assessments and Bankability Metrics by Nigerian Banks. We have already recorded significant progress in the industry, and hope to build upon our lessons to attract wider use of the metrics.
This project is important because it targets one of the main drivers of production – capital, and aims to reduce the risk lenders often associate with agricultural businesses.
To read about the project and our successes, read the full article co-written by our Managing Partner, Olufunmi Adepoju, Xoe Juliani, Marketing and Communications Officer at SCOPEinsight, and Dr. Hermann Messan, Program Officer for Inclusive Finance at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
A few important lessons have been learned through the just ended pilot:
● A strong understanding of the local environment through the LEN brings agility in BDS provision in different markets with different local realities.
● It is important to spend enough time in raising awareness and increasing the confidence of the financial sector on the benefits of the bankability metrics.
Exerpt from The future of agricultural access to finance