Finance scheme reach 10,000 plus people

 By SHIRLEY MAULUDU

THE Microfinance Expansion Project has so far reached about 10,000 people, its training and curriculum development specialist Jagdeep Dahiya said.

The project aims to provide financial education to 120,000 people (including 48,000 women) and business development skills training to 22,000 SMEs by 2017. 

Dahiya said the idea was to provide people, especially those in rural areas, with knowledge on financial matters.

“The project basically educates people on the importance of savings and sensitises them on effective management of personal finance and usage of financial products/services.” 

He said there were several challenges associated with rolling out of the project.

“Cost implications in PNG are very high” he said. “This coupled with the difficult geography and limited out-reach of financial services to rural areas, is one factor which not only makes it challenging to roll out the FE trainings but is a bottleneck for people to access to basic financial services.”

However, he said through the contracted training partners and participating financial institutions, the project team was committed to help bridge the gap, through financial education to the rural people and provide them with opportunities to access formal financial services throughout the country. 

Dahiya said MEP was comprehensive with multi-pronged approach. 

“On one end it aims to educate people to use financial services and on the other hand the project is working to build the capacities of the financial institutions and their staffs, so that they are better equipped to provide quality services to the economically marginalised.” 

The project was designed to strengthen the growth of the microfinance sector in the country. 

The project was funded by the Asian Development Bank and the governments of Australia and PNG, with the Bank of Papua New Guinea as executing body and MicroSave as the technical partner.