Special Paper No. 29 of 2019 on Women's Access to Agricultural Finance in Kenya: Baseline Report 2019

Abstract

The Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) aims to enhance access to agricultural finance by women across the agricultural value chains by increasing agricultural loans advanced to women to approximately Ksh 1.4 million per day in a calendar year or Ksh 1 billion (US$ 10,000,000) in a period of 2 years. In this regard, AFC has designed the Women Affirmative Access Window (WAAW) programme to drive financial inclusion in agricultural finance. This is in line with the Constitution of Kenya that requires measures be put in place to strengthen inclusivity and redress past disadvantages among vulnerable segments of the country’s population. A survey was commissioned aimed at establishing the status (as-is-situation) of access to agricultural finance by women in Kenya. The findings of the survey are expected to guide in developing effective and coherent strategy in programming of the WAAW initiative; set a reference point for later comparison and measurement of achievements of set interventions; devising an appropriate M&E tool; galvanize and catalyze discussions on means of addressing identified challenges and build on success stories; and provide information that can be used to assess broader agricultural financial access issues. The baseline study was undertaken under the leadership of the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS). The study was supported by UN-Women, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the European Union (EU). The survey was nationwide and focused on different activities within the agricultural value chains.