Case Study: The Clinton Development Initiative builds bankable farming communities with Farmforce

Building Access to Finance in Malawi

The Clinton Development Initiative (CDI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, faced the challenge of empowering smallholder farming co-ops in Malawi to access formal credit. Financial institutions required a credit history to disburse loans, which the farmers lacked, creating a significant barrier. CDI partnered with vendor Farmforce to utilize its digital management platform to help solve this problem.

Using the Farmforce service, CDI built digital economic identities and credit histories for over 3,400 farmers across 15 co-ops by tracking input loans. This digital record provided the transparent, robust financial history that banks needed to see. As a result, co-ops established direct relationships with financial institutions like Standard Bank, secured favorable loan terms, and dramatically increased their contract sales from 1,000 to 1,800 metric tons in a year, achieving an 88% average loan repayment rate.

The Clinton Development Initiative

Ariana Constant

Director