Where We Work : Afghanistan : Microfinance

Across Afghanistan every week, nearly 200,000 women attend their local BRAC microfinance meetings. They come to repay their weekly loan installments, apply for new loans, and buy health products from their community health promoter.

Our microfinance programme has been designed to serve a large number of poor people – mostly women – with reliable access to cost effective financial services.

They also receive additional support – such as specialist training and input supplies - for their varied small businesses.

Main features

• Village Organisations
• Micro loans
• Small Enterprise Loans
• Agriculture and Livestock Development and Credit Support Programme
• Alternative Livelihood Rural Finance Programme

Village Organisations

The village organisation is the basis for BRAC to provide microfinance and other programmes to the community. A village organisation is a group of 20-30 women that meets weekly to discuss credit decisions and make loan repayments.  New borrower groups meet four times before any loan disbursement takes place.

Micro loans

Our main microfinance product is the micro loan. We offer this exclusively to women on low incomes who are not served by other microfinance institutions. We go directly to the poor women, we target and meet them in their villages, homes and places of work.

The women borrowers typically operate businesses that provide products or services to their local communities. They range in age from 20-50 years, and have little or no education.

Features of micro loans:

• Exclusively for women
• Loan repayments in small weekly installments
• No physical collateral needed
• Loan range: USD 100-2,000
• Competitive interest rates
• Loan write-offs and grants to dependants given upon borrower’s death
• Services delivered to member’s village
• Available in rural and urban areas

Small Enterprise Loans

Small Enterprise Loans are larger loans offered to small entrepreneurs who have limited access to formal financial systems.

Both men and women can apply and the instalments are monthly.

Features of Small Enterprise Loan

• Available to both men and women entrepreneurs
• Loan range: USD 1,000-5,000
• Competitively low interest rates
• Repayment mode: equal monthly instalments

Agriculture and Livestock Development and Credit Support Programme

 We provide credit facility to farmers under this programme with various types of training and technical support. 

Objectives:

• to generate income and create employment opportunities for small and marginal farmers
• to develop existing entrepreneurs by providing technical assistance and financial support
• to increase agricultural production and practices.

Alternative Livelihood Rural Finance Programme

Afghanistan’s progress is jeopardised by opium cultivation - one the greatest threats to the country’s recovery. We are implementing the Alternative Livelihood Rural Finance Programme in the provinces where opium cultivation poses a serious problem.

Under this programme, credit and training are provided to those who are directly or indirectly involved in opium cultivation only. This is done to encourage the farmers to move away from opium cultivation.