Support programme for financial inclusion development (PADIF)

Context

The fourth Indicative Cooperation Programme (ICP IV) between the Republic of Niger and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has two strategic and interdependent objectives: to contribute to the development of human capital and to strengthen inclusive governance in Niger.

ICP IV recognies financial inclusion as one of the main levers of socio-economic development and poverty reduction and aims to support the implementation of Niger's national inclusive finance strategy  and to promote the access of vulnerable populations to sources of finance in line with the financial inclusion development fund  and the food and nutritional security investment fund on the one hand, and the national fund for the support of small and medium-sized enterprises and industries on the other hand.

The programme is part of this approach and is in line with the orientations of national policies and strategies and the general strategy of the Luxembourg Cooperation.

Overall objective

Improving access to financial services for vulnerable populations, especially women and youth, is the overall objective of the programme and forms one of the five intervention axes of ICP IV. 

Specific objective

The specific objective of PADIF is to improve access to financial services for vulnerable populations and actors in the agricultural sector. PADIF will contribute to increasing their potential for professional integration and the creation of sustainable jobs. 

Project intervention strategy

In this context, the PADIF, which is implemented by ADA, a Luxembourg NGO, has developed three areas of intervention in order to contribute to the achievement of the expected results in favour of the financial inclusion of the population in a sustainable manner:

• the environment is equipped with support mechanisms that favour the development of the inclusive finance sector;
• the microfinance sector is consolidated and made up of efficient decentralised financial systems;
• financial service providers have developed financing solutions for value chain actors.

To this end, ADA supports microfinance institutions identified jointly with LuxDev so that they can offer appropriate financial services to the beneficiaries of the Employment and employability programme, particularly with a view to the self-employment of youth and women. As part of this support, ADA is also experimenting with new and innovative approaches to reduce the risks associated with financing.

The project is supervised by the Ministry of Finance, to which the executive secretariat of the national inclusive finance strategy is attached. With a budget of MEUR 15, PADIF consists of a technical assistance and capacity building component (MEUR 3.5) to be implemented by ADA and a fund allocation component (MEUR 11.5) to be implemented by LuxDev.