Recovery Lending for Resilience in Senegal
Recovery Lending for Resilience in Senegal
The effects of COVID-19 in Senegal are still felt by our clients, but a strong program of Recovery Lending and a move towards digital approaches will support their recovery well into the future.
Recovery Lending in Senegal
Injecting more capital into the market during an emergency might seem counterintuitive, but for VisionFund Senegal's clients, our Recovery Loans have ensured that their businesses have survived and that their families have been kept safe during long lockdown periods.
Funding of USD $1m has been released to VisionFund Senegal since the start of the Recovery Lending for Resilience program, which has enabled 1,782 loans to support our clients' recovery. This was invested in various businesses which were negatively affected by the pandemic, but largely for farming activities, which are critical to survival in rural Senegal.
Digitisation in Senegal
A key next step in Senegal's Recovery Lending for Resilience program is to interconnect its eight branches to a robust and centralised information and management system. This will bring greater efficiency to loan officers and clients, improve the processing of information flows within the network with a faster and more secure transmission of data to headquarters, as well as a real-time monitoring of branch operations and performance.
This centralisation is essential and a prerequisite for the use of mobile money and use of tablets (Digital Field Applications) for field officers and agents. When field officers have access to digital tools, they can work with clients remotely, even if lockdown restrictions are in place, and ensure recovery loans are made in a timely way.