Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe launched the Tirsal fund on Wednesday (April 25th) in Lomé, a risk-sharing incentive mechanism for agricultural finance.
The scheme will work through a basket to which development partners and the government will contribute. It will generate credit lines up to 10 times the seed capital invested within 10 years to bring agricultural loans from 0.3% to 5% of total bank loans.
Eventually, it will be endowed with funding of 100 million euros, more than 65 billion CFA francs, “including a significant contribution from the state,” according to Faure Gnassingbé.
“This great synergy, which includes banks and financial institutions, insurance companies, microfinance institutions and guarantee funds and other partner agencies, augurs positive days for Togolese agriculture,” he said. .
Inspired by the Nigerian model (Nirsal), the Tirsal fund (Togo Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending) will finance, in its pilot phase, the cultivation of maize and rice before being extended to other crops.
One million producers were to be favorably impacted by 2021 thanks to the aggregation strategy, through mechanisms such as the professionalization of value chains, financial inclusion and cooperatives.
It is indeed a program perceived as a solution in the performance of agriculture that accounts for about 40% of GDP, and employs about 60% of the active population. In particular, it will have to increase the volume of financing provided by the banking sector for agricultural activities.
