Rural Financial Intermediation Programme (2017) - IOE
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Rural Financial Intermediation Programme (2017)
One of the main achievements of the programme was transforming Lesotho Post Bank into a self-reliant financial intermediary with a full banking license, and expanding rural credit and savings outreach. With the support of the programme, Lesotho Post Bank launched its lending operations and attained profitability for the first time in 2014.
The programme also contributed to the establishment of member-based financial institutions, which successfully provided their members, mostly women, with facilities to deposit and accumulate their savings and eventually improved their living conditions and household incomes.
On the other hand, the programme had an ambitious objective of enhancing access by the rural poor to efficient financial services on a sustainable basis. While the programme managed to build financial intermediaries with rural outreach which mobilized their own resources as loanable funds, the intended objective was not achieved at completion, as the linkages between member-based financial institutions and commercial banks were not effectively created.