TO IMPROVE THE INCOME AND PRODUCTIVITY OF SMALLHOLDER BUSINESSES: NOCOFIO

Financial inclusion means individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs. These products may be in the form of transactions, savings, credit, insurance and savings. It’s important that the delivery is responsible and done in a sustainable way. 

Before collaborations and field work done towards the establishment of Nocofio, I had been dealing with agribusiness startups. An issue that run through most of these businesses was the ‘lack of funds’ to help them scale to a level which they sought to reach. Also during my time working with farmers in the Eastern (Kwae) and Brong-Ahafo (Bechem, Tanoso, Duayawnkwanta, Techire etc) Regions of Ghana, the same issue of lack of funds was always discussed in our meetings. On one hand, businesses had access to funds from financial institutions yet were not encouraged to take up loans due to high interest rates and on the other hand there was a lack of such services from the traditional finance industry particularly in areas with poor financial infrastructure. 

Globally, more than 200 million formal and informal micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in emerging economies lack adequate financing to thrive and grow. Majority of such businesses cite a lack of collateral and credit history and the informality of businesses to not having financial accounts. For individuals, some groups are more financially excluded than others. Women, rural poor and other remote or hard to reach populations, as well as informal micro and small firms are affected. 

In Ghana, 91% of smallholder businesses face capital constraints. However, with the growth in Mobile Money (MM) transactions, financial transactions via MM has positively impacted such businesses. All these and more were discovered during our field trial session at Nocofio. Also, it was realized that most smallholder business had little or no knowledge in financial literacy and did not practice basic book keeping. 

During our field visits, we realized that credit was very important to the development of businesses and the economy. Also, access to finance by smallholder businesses was noted to be a requisite to employment, economic growth and poverty reduction to boost shared prosperity.

It is with all these facts and need to impact such smallholder businesses that the team at Nocofio aims to work tirelessly towards. We believe that with our platform and training in financial literacy and basic bookkeeping for smallholder businesses, the benefits will be translated and beneficial to many.

"the best culture is agriculture"