Grants

GRANT CASE STUDIES

UK GOVERNMENT AWARDS WORLD VISION UK £2 MILLION ‘RETURNABLE’ GRANT TO FUND VISIONFUND’S EL NINO RESPONSE IN AFRICA

Families devastated by what is predicted to be particularly severe El Niño weather patterns in six African countries are to benefit from small loans to rebuild their livelihoods, following a £2million ‘returnable grant’ from the UK Government to aid agency World Vision UK and its microfinance partner, VisionFund International.

FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN MYANMAR BOLSTERED BY US$4.5 MILLION GRANT FROM LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY TRUST FUND

The Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) has awarded World Vision Myanmar, working in close partnership with World Vision Australia and its microfinance partner VisionFund Myanmar, a grant of $4.5 million to help approximately 100,000 people gain improved access to financial services. In alignment with LIFT’s objectives, the grant will enable VisionFund Myanmar to increase its efforts to provide credit and savings products for those primarily engaged in agricultural and off-farm small businesses in the states of Kachin, Shan, Kayah and Kayin, comprising a major part of Myanmar’s uplands region.

WORLD VISION TYPHOON HAIYAN RESPONSE GRANT

The World Vision Typhoon Haiyan Response (WV THR) through the World Vision Development Foundation (WVDF) awarded VisionFund International US$400,000 to support this initiative of self-recovery of livelihoods through the provision of microfinance lending to beneficiaries in the affected communities.

DFAT SGB GRANT IN GHANA AND MYANMAR

A new World Vision program which will bridge the loan gap for high potential businesses in Myanmar and Ghana has received an Australian Government grant of $4 million Aus over three years. This will be implemented by VisionFund Ghana and VisionFund Myanmar and trials an innovative approach to address problems faced by the “missing middle”businesses – those which have outgrown traditional microfinance, but are still considered too high-risk or too small to access bank loans. The project will give coaching, technical and loan support to 2000 small and growing businesses with potential and ambition to grow and importantly to generate employment in their communities. VisionFund expects the three-year grant will contribute to the creation of 6500 new jobs and sustaining another 6500. VisionFund will use the grant funding to leverage borrowing from commercial market to double the impact of the grant in Ghana and increase the impact by four times in Myanmar. Word Vision Australia, World Vision Canada and VisionFund have been championing this approach in not only Myanmar and Ghana but also Sri Lanka and Mexico, testing the link between poverty reduction and supporting small and growing businesses by loaning larger sums with business coaching.

MFAT NEW ZEALAND GRANT FOR MYANMAR

Through a recent grant award funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, World Vision New Zealand, World Vision Myanmar and VisionFund Myanmar together with Lincoln University are implementing a 5-year project which aims to develop sustainable, profitable, and scalable value chains for improved livelihoods and well-being of communities in the Tanintharyi region of Myanmar. Cutting-edge participatory tools will help smallholders identify and participate in value chains. Producer groups and organisations will be established and equipped to link farmers to markets. A range of financial services for households and producer organisations will be developed and the project will support over 6000 households and over 32,000 beneficiaries. This project is worth US$2.7m and will build innovative partnerships utilising private donations and using VisionFund’s commercially borrowed loan capital for lending to clients, to meet donor match requirements.