SPECIAL REPORT: Mariel Mensink Presents Agri-Finance Lending Scorecard to Rural Outreach and Innovation Action Group at e-MFP’s European Microfinance Week

Mariel Mensink of ICCO Terrafina Microfinance, an affiliate of the Dutch Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO), spoke yesterday during the opening day of the European Microfinance Platform’s (e-MFP’s) European Microfinance Week, presenting the agri-finance scorecard, a tool that loan officers can use to assess the repayment capacity of potential microborrowers. The crop-specific tool harnesses satellite data; market prices; and interviews with farmers, agronomists, microfinance institution (MFI) staff to help MFIs determine whether to disburse particular microloans. Terrafina recently completed a sample of the scorecard for testing in Ethiopia. Regarding the organization’s plan to sell the product to MFIs, Ms Mensink said, “If we create good data, farmers are willing to pay for it.”

This presentation was held as part of a meeting of e-MFP’s Rural Outreach and Innovation Action Group. Currently, this group is seeking new members to develop and carry out an action plan for the next two years, meeting two or three times between each year’s European Microfinance Week.

The meeting was one in a series of Action Group meetings held in Luxembourg yesterday to open the 2015 European Microfinance Week. Today, Bob Summers, the publisher and editor of MicroCapital, moderated the plenary titled “Assessing limits: towards sustainable growth in microfinance,” which opened the two days of traditional conference sessions that form the bulk of European Microfinance Week.

This story is part of a sponsored series on European Microfinance Week, which is held each November by e-MFP, a 125-member network located in Luxembourg. MicroCapital is reporting live from the event.

Do you know that MicroCapital publishes the MicroCapital Monitor newspaper each month? Find out more at https://www.microcapital.org/products-page/.

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