Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, October 18, 2010
—IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, in partnership with Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Finance, today announced the launch of the country’s first leasing program. The program is expected to train about 700 individuals on how they may secure or offer the means to lease equipment and substantially grow the country’s leasing industry.
In African countries, high interest rates and prohibitive collateral requirements prevent most micro, small and medium enterprises from securing the necessary credit to acquire expensive machinery, equipment, or vehicles. Traditional banking and commercial credit are often only available to the top end of the market.
Burkina Faso’s Minister of Finance, Lucien Marie Noel Bembamba said, “Faced with this situation, financial products such as leasing can play an important role in responding to the needs of small business in both the formal and informal sectors. IFC's Africa Leasing Facility which plans to train more than 500 small businesses in addition to 200 key industry players will give them the opportunity to better understand leasing and get the most out of it.”
Over the next three years, IFC Advisory Services’ Africa Leasing Facility will work with the government of Burkina Faso to raise awareness of leasing as a tool for small business and economic development. Trainings will range from instruction on how local financial institutions may offer leases to business plan creation for small businesses to apply for a lease.
Burkina Faso’s current leasing market is 1.5 billion West African CFA francs. The program further aims to increase this volume to 8 billion by 2012 and 30 billion by 2018.
“Leasing delivers strong developmental impact and is particularly useful as a financial instrument for small businesses in Africa which often lack the credit history or sufficient collateral to access traditional forms of financing,” said Mary-Jean Moyo, IFC Country Manager for Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Niger and Togo. “Leasing also reduces the initial capital requirements for acquiring equipment and is therefore an innovative way to have a long-term positive impact on small business development in Burkina Faso.”
The leasing program is a central tenet of IFC’s global initiative to promote private sector development by facilitating alternative sources of financing to small businesses.
After having met considerable success in Ghana, Madagascar and Tanzania, IFC Advisory Services Africa Leasing Facility has been extended to 14 countries in Sub Saharan Africa. It is funded through IFC’s Private Enterprise Partnership for Africa (PEP Africa) in partnership with the African Development Bank, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland. For more information on the facility, visit
www.ifc.org/africaleasing
.
About IFC
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in developing countries. We create opportunity for people to escape poverty and improve their lives. We do so by providing financing to help businesses employ more people and supply essential services, by mobilizing capital from others, and by delivering advisory services to ensure sustainable development. In a time of global economic uncertainty, our new investments climbed to a record $18 billion in fiscal 2010. For more information, visit
www.ifc.org
.
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