Financing community business energy needs
Using energy productively allows community businesses and farmers to increase opportunities for productivity and income. Most use savings to start their businesses and some access loans as they grow, but many women don’t have savings to access and their businesses don’t grow. Getting more affordable finance options for community businesses - especially to women-led ones - is crucial to making off-grid energy work and developing rural communities.
In September 2020 we gathered data on the intentions of community businesses - defined in this infographic as micro/very small businesses and farmers - to purchase appliances to boost their productivity and income.
It shows the top ten appliances people wished to buy - the larger the icon, the more frequently it was mentioned. The colours represent the source of finance which they intended to us for each appliance. Data was gathered from a phone survey of 373 community business owners in Tanzania.
Credit: IIED/Hivos