Two US-based NGOs, MIX, a data provider also known as the Microfinance Information Exchange, and the One Acre Fund, which seeks to develop “market-based strategies to fight rural poverty,” recently rolled out public access to a set of data on financial services for small-scale farmers called the Smallholder Finance Product Explorer. The service, which is part of the MIX Market database, is slated to grow from its current level, which includes 80 products from 35 financial services providers. The database offers the number of clients accessing each product and is searchable by geographic and other criteria.
Speaking about the motivation for creating the service, Mike Warmington, the microfinance partnerships director at One Acre Fund, said, “Financial service providers around the globe are positioned to address financing gaps in their local markets, but they face high resource constraints to develop and deploy financial products for smallholder farmers.”
MIX provides data and analysis on financial service providers, funders and other organizations involved in serving the financial needs of low-income clients through avenues including the MIX Market website, which offers financial and social performance data on approximately 2,000 organizations. MIX had a 2016 budget of USD 2.5 million.
One Acre Fund offers financing for agricultural inputs, distribution of those inputs, agricultural training and market facilitation in six African countries. The NGO reports serving 446,000 families via gross revenue of USD 86 million for the fiscal year 2016.
Sources and additional resources
MIX press release
https://www.themix.org/news/announcement/mix-and-one-acre-fund-launch-smallholder-finance-product-explorer
MIX Market
http://mixmarket.org/
One Acre Fund 2016 financial
https://oneacrefund.org/documents/234/One_Acre_Fund_2016_Analysis_Financials.pdf
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