In early 2003, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Centre International de Développement et de Recherche (CIDR) and MicroSave came together to discuss their respective activities for rural financial service development in Eastern and Southern Africa and to explore ways they might work more closely together in areas of common interest.
Recognising the high degree of complementarity between their respective initiatives and the scope for developing synergies between them, they explored the idea of establishing a joint regional office for Eastern Africa.
Such an office would provide, on one hand, a base from which each of the three agencies could provide capacity building support for rural finance activities in the region, and on the other, an opportunity to interact and learn from each other - especially in terms of developing and pursuing collaborative action research. This shared agenda has become known as the Rural Finance Knowledge Management Partnership (RFKMP).
PROJECT OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
1. Goal. The overall goal of the KMP is to contribute to an improvement in the access of poor rural people in Eastern and Southern Africa to appropriate and sustainable financial services.
2. Purposes. To achieve this goal, the KMP has as its objectives: (a) improved delivery, outreach, appropriateness and sustainability of financial services for poor people in the rural areas; and (b) strengthened policy and regulatory framework for rural financial service delivery.
3. Activities. The objectives of KMP would, in turn, be achieved through a set of four, linked activities: capacity building for IFAD-supported projects and programmes; action research with partner institutions; promotion of rural finance policy dialogue; and sharing best practices and knowledge management. These outputs elaborated hereunder.
