ACA is a program, implemented by ACDI/VOCA, which, endorsed by the technical assistance granted by EDA (Training and Development of Farmers) will obtain a total of 5,000 loans for the program farmers, which will allow them to increase their productive units, making them sustainable based on field knowledge and management of their finances.
ACDI/VOCA will strengthen the capacity of the financial institutions to streamline their services for the rural sector and for the agricultural sector with 3 sub-components: technical assistance to financial institutions, the trust fund, and assistance in the development of the assignment of land titles. The ACA project seeks to increase the credit offer and other financial services for the agricultural sectors, agri-businesses and rural enterprises.
The four phases of the project are:
1) An Inception and Assessment phase during which the ACDI/VOCA team will comprehensively review the rural lending markets in Honduras, test our assumptions and ground truth the need for the products and services we have identified;
2) A Product Launching phase that emphasizes the piloting of 2 basic loan products to program farmers, so that outstanding loans to program farmers exceed $5 million by month 18 of the activity;
3) A Rapid Expansion phase that facilitates the development of a savings product and a product that engages agribusinesses in value chain finance, along with organizational strengthening activities, in order that outstanding loans to program farmers exceed $13 million by month 30; and
4) A Diversification phase designed to ensure that by the end of the project 6 partner retailers are successfully managing a loan portfolio of more than $24 million, without reliance on the Program Farmer Loan Fund.
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The ACA Project is part of the Millennium Challenge Account – Honduras programs which started its activities in June 2007 and will carry on until October 2010.
To achieve this objective it is necessary to involve the whole “horticultural value chain”, which is formed by all the activities that intervene in the stream of production which allow the producer to reach the final consumer, as well as, provide technical assistance to the traditional financial institutions, micro finance institutions and other organizations that provide credit to the producers.
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