UNIFAD to provide $35 mn loan to Pak

from Yahoo News India

By Indian Express

A UN agency has announced that it will provide $ 35 million loan to a programme making microfinance services available to about 160,000 people in Pakistan, at least half of them women.

"It is a pivotal time for microfinance in Pakistan," said Nigel Brett, UN International Fund for Agricultural Development's country programme manager for Pakistan.

"Future growth in this sector will depend partly on microfinance institutions and commercial banks forging successful financing partnerships. This new USD 46 million programme will work to build such partnerships," Brett said.

The IFAD-supported programme will work with small farmers, livestock owners, traders and microentrepreneurs; women and households headed solely by women; and vulnerable rural households living below the poverty line.

IFAD also announced an over USD 14 million project to boost the market value of Bolivia's millions of llamas, alpacas and undomesticated vicuqas in products like meat, hides and wool-based handicrafts, as well as eco-tourism. The agency will contribute a loan of USD 7.2 million for the initiative.

"The project will give poor rural people better access to financial services and provide them with technical assistance, knowledge and information, so that they can start small businesses," said Roberto Haudry de Soucy, IFAD's country programme manager for Bolivia.

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America.

Although GDP per capita grew during the 1990s, it was insufficient to reduce poverty, inequality and social exclusion, IFAD said.