Publication: Strengthening Cooperative Financial Institutions: Lessons Learned from a Joint World Bank and Rabo Partnerships Project
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2024-12-04
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2024-12-04
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With their large, often unparalleled, retail outreach to otherwise underserved areas and populations, Cooperative Financial Institutions (CFIs) have significant potential to deepen financial inclusion in rural and marginal urban areas. Greater financial access (savings, credits, payments, among others) is one of the key ingredients for rural and agriculture development. However, in many countries CFIs fail to reach their full potential due to inadequate regulation and supervision (R&S) as well as weak or inexistent financial safety nets (FSN), weak internal and external controls, insufficient management capacity, limited economies of scale, and weaknesses in their corporate governance. The World Bank (WB) and Rabo Partnerships (RP) carried out this knowledge project aiming to replicate and expand the successful global experiences in transforming the CFI sector through strengthening their R&S frameworks and FSN for CFIs, their federations, and networks. The project worked in Colombia, Ethiopia, and the West Africa region. The World Bank focused on policy work supporting reforms to the R&S environment and FSN, while, working in parallel, Rabo Partnerships addressed institutional capacity development, and strengthening CFIs, federations, and networks. This report summarizes the partners and pilot activities under this project.
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“World Bank. 2024. Strengthening Cooperative Financial Institutions: Lessons Learned from a Joint World Bank and Rabo Partnerships Project. Prosperity Notes Series. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42498 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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