Rwanda Nguriza Nshore Activity FY19 Q1 Quarterly Progress Report

The program aims to alleviate constraints to investment and increase access to financing, facilitating the creation and growth of small to medium agribusinesses. This will provide productive employment for rural populations and reduce poverty. Nguriza Nshore seeks to increase rural employment through expanded investment in non-farm small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across Rwanda. The program's geographic focus prioritizes the 13 districts of the new Feed the Future (FtF) zones of influence (ZOI). However, to take advantage of economies of scale present in urban and peri-urban locations, Nguriza Nshore may propose interventions outside of these priority areas. The program applies a facilitative ecosystem strengthening approach to support the following three objectives: 1. Improve capacity of financial institutions – banks and non-banks – to lend to off-farm SMEs; 2. Increase private and commercial investment in off-farm SMEs in order to become investment ready; and 3. Strengthen the enabling environment to create the conditions for off-farm SMEs to increase their business performance and profitability. Underpinning Nguriza Nshore's programming is the following Theory of Change: if financial institutions have expanded capability and favorable incentives to lend to SMEs, and access to private and commercial investment for SME agribusinesses is unlocked through value-creating partnerships, and policy constraints to accessing finance, investment, and entrepreneurship development are addressed, then Rwanda's agribusiness sector will have higher value-added production, profitability, and accelerated job creation. During the reporting period, Nguriza Nshore made important progress toward achieving contractual results. Key achievements include: * A grant to Benefactors, LTD was approved for $100,000, allowing the company to finance a portion of its growing client list and support its fundraising objectives. * The project is finalizing scopes of work for Cogebanque and AB Bank for SME lending, with work expected to begin during the FY19 Q2-3. * Nguriza Nshore brokered an agreement for Gos, a Rwandan factoring firm, to provide financing to SMEs. These achievements demonstrate progress toward Nguriza Nshore's objectives, including improving the capacity of financial institutions to lend to SMEs and increasing private and commercial investment in off-farm SMEs.