KBA partners with GIZ to drive financial access for entrepreneurs and SMEs in Kenya’s agricultural sector

By Christine Onyango KBA

 Kenya Bankers Association (KBA), the leading financial sector advocacy group, has entered a...

partnership with GIZ that seeks to enhance access to finance for farmers and agri-business enterprises. The collaboration will facilitate capacity building among lenders, aiding them to gain deeper insights on specific green technology financing, with a view of enabling them to develop tailor made products.

With support from the Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) programme, the Digital Transformation Center and SDG Market Building Project, funded by the German Government and implemented by GIZ, several e-learnings will be developed and deployed under KBA’s Sustainable Finance Initiative Online Learning Platform.

Speaking during the signing ceremony, KBA CEO, Dr. Habil Olaka called on banks to support Agri-business enterprises, challenging small-scale farmers to establish businesses that are bankable.

According to a 2018 KBA report entitled “Realisation of Full Potential of the Agriculture Sector”, commercial lending to the Agricultural Sector remains low, accounting for 4 percent of the total lending portfolios.

Armin Kloeckner, Head of the Agriculture Programme at GIZ noted that “Agricultural finance is strategically important for eliminating hunger and boosting prosperity. The Sustainable Finance Initiative (SFI) provides an excellent platform to demonstrate the potential of green technologies for both, the agriculture and the finance sectors.”

Besides the training, the partners will ensure that green and digital investment projects with suitable products offered by KBA member banks, also address the challenges agribusinesses face in accessing bank loans. The partnership will enable awareness creation among the public and private sector stakeholders to enable a functioning market for green and digital technologies in Kenya.

About the Kenya Bankers Association:

KBA was founded on 16th July 1962. Today, KBA is the financial sector’s leading advocacy group and banking industry umbrella body that represents total assets in excess of USD 40 billion. KBA has evolved and broadened its function to include advocacy on behalf of the banking industry and championing financial sector development through strategic projects such as the launch of the industry’s first P2P digital payments platform PesaLink. In line with the Government’s policy on public-private partnerships, KBA and Central Bank of Kenya have implemented key projects such as modernization of the National Payments System through the Automated Clearing House, implementing the Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), and the Kenya Credit Information Sharing Initiative. The KBA members are comprised of commercial banks and deposit taking microfinance banks. For more information, visit www.kba.co.ke.

About GIZ

The Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH or GIZ in short (English: German Corporation for International Cooperation) is a German development agency with over 50 years of experience in a broad variety of areas, including economic development and employment, energy and the environment, and peace and security. The GIZ projects – WE4F, Digital Transformation Center and SDG Market Building – jointly seek to promote the uptake of green and digital technologies in Kenya and thus, enable a more significant private sector contribution to a climate-smart and resource-efficient economy. Appropriate access to finance in this regard is a crucial factor to enable necessary investments into green tech.

Media Contacts:

Christine Onyango

Director, Communications and Public Affairs

Email: conyango@kba.co.ke

Phone: 0711562910