To further alleviate poverty, the Chadian government intends to launch in 2019 the second phase of the Project for Islamic Microfinance in Chad (PROMIFIT) and has requested the IDB’s support through a second line of financing. MARC ROUSSOT has more.
Marking the end of the first cycle of trainings provided by PROMIFIT since 2013, the last two sessions aiming to inculcate the rudiments of Islamic finance will be taking place in the next few days in N’Djamena, Chad’s capital city. About a hundred participants are expected to be attending the two-day workshops.
Over the past six years, similar trainings have been organized throughout seven provinces in Chad and about 2,100 people, mainly women and youths, have been exposed to the most basic Shariah compliant financing solutions.
“Storekeeper, farmers, stockmen, women associations and youth organizations have been the main beneficiaries of our trainings. Women usually have a small business and sell peanuts, vegetables or condiments for instance. They just need a little help to develop it. Often, they are more efficient in the way they utilize the funds obtained from a microfinance institution,” shares Addah Bourkou Khagair, the head of monitoring and assessment at PROMIFIT.
The training campaign has yielded positive results according to Addah who is now waiting for the authority to launch the second phase of the project with the objective to strengthen the role of Islamic microfinance in the provinces that have already been covered and to expand outreach, especially in the Northern part of the country where the instability caused by the Libyan war has prevented PROMIFIT’s employees to reach the local population.
The government is looking at potentially starting a new cycle of trainings in 2019 and has already approached the IDB to secure a second line of financing, Ruth Padja Madjidian, the minister of vocational training and small-scale jobs, tells IFN.
The first line of financing obtained in 2013, amounting to XOF1.5 billion (US$2.6 million), has been fully utilized. Five microfinance institutions have benefited from it, including Finadev, which established a window and opened two branches in Abeche and Am-Timan.
“There are tremendous needs for microfinancing in Chad,” Madjidian says. According to the World Bank’s latest data, 46.7% of the population was living below the national poverty lines in 2011. They were 54.8% in 2002.
This article first appeared in IFN Volume 15 Issue 50 on the 12th of December 2018
MARC ROUSSOT 