ICCO Burundi

About ICCO Burundi

ICCO Burundi is part of a wider global Dutch not-for-profit organisation. Across 36 countries worldwide, ICCO works towards a world in which people can live in dignity and well-being, a world without poverty and injustice, with its primary expertise in agri-value chains and microfinance.

ICCO Burundi joined Youth Business International with a focus on enhancing their flagship programme (Microfinance, Agri-finance and Value Chains). ICCO Burundi will work with YBI to enhance the training that is currently offered to small holder farmers (mainly youth and women) as part of this programme, and for the first time, introduce specialised entrepreneurship training.

ICCO-Cooperation in Burundi started more than 3 years and 8 months ago a programme for Microfinance, AgriFinance and Value Chains in Burundi (MAVC). The approach adopted by the MAVC program is called "making the markets work for the poor-M4P". It is a market-based value chain approach that ensures the inclusion of the rural population (with special attention to women and youth) inmarket and finance systems.

The program has also developed a financial inclusion strategy for the rural population for the poorest (young and female) through the development of rural financial products. Also, the approach of "making the markets work for the poor-M4P" is complementary to the access to financing of MFIs by the granting of agricultural credit and productive credits to producer organizations (PO), processing units and small and medium agricultural enterprises.

Through expertise in value chains and in particular the following four links in value chains, ICCO continues to transform subsistence farming into agri-business. Those are:

• Production with farmers and POs
• Transformation through innovations and SMEs (Transformation Units) that drive smallholder farmers
• Financing that develops the ability of MFIs to finance the agricultural sector, and
• Market access with targeted financing links and fair contracts.

Image via ICCO Burundi