Goal:
Improvement of income, food security and general living condition of the poor rural households particularly women-headed households, youth and the physically challenged.
Programme Development Objectives:
(i) To develop and strengthen rural financial services and enhance the accessibility of poor rural people to these services so as to expand production; and
(ii) To improve the productivity of agriculture and micro-small rural enterprises.
The Programme was implemented in Badagry, Ikorodu , Epe, Ojo and Ibeju- Lekki Local Governments Note that only 3 Local Governments; Badagry, Epe and Ikorodu Local Governments were being funded by IFAD, Lagos State Government upscaled the programme to additional 2 Local Governments; Ibeju-Lekki and Ojo.
IMPACT
The overall objective of the programme was to reduce rural poverty by bringing every possible rural dweller into the Financial Inclusion net through the creation of sustainable rural financial services. Consequently, its implementation recorded a great boost in production activities across various agricultural value chains with noticeable improvement in the standard of living of beneficiaries in the LGA’s of intervention.
Between Epe and Ejinrin axis over 500 fishermen that were hitherto hiring canoes for their fishing activities before the programme intervention were assisted to acquire their own canoes through access to micro-credit facilities. This situation has increased their landing size and income by over 150%. Other economic and social indices have also been improved.
Similarly, 192 roadside fish processors using wire mesh over naked fire to smoke fish were assisted to access micro-credit to improve their fish smoking technology by the use of fish smoking kiln under more hygienic environment, leading to over 500% increase in productivity and income.
Modest achievements were also recorded under crop enterprises; majorly maize, vegetables, watermelon and cassava Crop farmers cultivating just a few plots of land; a good number of them are now doing up to one hectare and more particularly in Badagry, Epe and some parts of Ikorodu local government areas.
Part of the mandate of RUFIN was also to mentor Cooperative Societies. 11 Cooperative Societies were mentored to access CBN Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF). LASCOTAC Financial Cooperative, Epe and Tipper Garage Igbogbo, have been able to access ₦10 million naira credit facility directly from the CBN under MSMEDF, while the remaining applications have passed the CBN due diligence committee and awaiting their accounts to be credited. LASCOTAC Epe was one of the CBN awardees for good performance in Abuja. This achievement led to its being selected to participate in the disbursement of the Federal Government Growth Enterprise and Empowerment Project (GEEP) being anchored by Bank of Industry. LASCOTAC Financial Cooperative is currently disbursing N20M under GEEP.
