1. Investing in Savings Expansion with New Products and Promotions. Savings help protect low-income families against shocks, smooth household consumption, enhance business productivity and empower marginalized women. BOM staff encourage savings account opening by performing entertaining and informative roadshows in busy markets. During 2013, the bank will also launch a savings and awareness campaign to coincide with the rollout of 2-3 new types of savings accounts
2. Introducing Innovative Agricultural Mapping & Profiling Technologies. When working with smallholder farmers, it’s important for Opportunity to determine the exact land area available for cultivation and the general profile of each household to determine the precise level of inputs (fertilizer, agro-chemicals, etc.) and financing needed. During 2013, BOM’s agricultural team will start using new smartphones and GPS devices to profile agricultural clients and map their land.
3. Launching More Low-Cost Financial Access Points. Providing clients with financial access using non-branch outlets is cheaper for the bank and more convenient for clients, because the bank can afford to deploy more outlets overall. This year, BOM will launch three additional ATMs, deploy its seventh mobile van, open an innovative U-shaped container branch and prioritize distribution of new debit cards to clients.

How much do you know about Mozambique? Here are a few key facts about this vibrant and resource-rich African country:

• Mozambique is slightly less than twice the size of California.
• Portuguese is Mozambique’s official language. The country was colonized by Portugal in 1505 and didn’t gain independence until 1975.
• Following independence, Mozambique became a Marxist one-party state allied to the Soviet bloc. After the breakup of the Soviet Union and a long civil war, Mozambique became one of Africa’s first democracies in the 1990’s.
• Mozambique is still recovering from its difficult history. 90% of Mozambique’s population lives on less than $2 per day.
• 78% of Mozambican adults lack access to formal financial services.

Feed more hungry people. Rwandan rice farmer Elina Uwingeneye is an agricultural finance client who uses loans to grow more crops with better fertilizers, increasing yields.	Be nice to your mom. Loan client Maria Elena Tovar Gonzalez, from Guadalajara, Mexico, poses with her son. 93% of Opportunity’s loans go to women like Maria around the world.
Learn a new skill. Experienced artisan Maria de los Angeles Ordjonez carves elaborate designs into decorative pieces and household items to sell in her Honduras village.	Educate the next generation. Bright Ofori (left) and Clementina Dankwa learn at the Richmercy School, Ashaiman, Ghana, where proprietor Mercy Senyegah receives loans to improve her school.
Be a good friend. Beatrice Boaten and her fellow members of the Nerebehi Cocoa Farmers Association process the cocoa harvest together in Ghana.	Bring someone joy. A client who makes jewelry surprises loan officer Valamarthi with a beautiful bouquet in Chennai, India.

What are your goals for the New Year? Leave them in the comment field below.

Smallholder farmers make up 50% of the world’s hungriest people, and technology is at the forefront of empowering these farmers to feed themselves and their families, and to earn a higher income. Opportunity International continues to develop agricultural finance tools that can be critical to helping farmers in a variety of climates and growing conditions increase their crop yields.

Sam saw firsthand the challenges of smallholder farmers in the developing world when she visited Rwanda with Engineers Without Borders-Johnson Space Center. Then, in December 2011 and again in March 2012, she went to Nicaragua to see Opportunity’s yucca processing plant, meeting Executive Director David Kone and Program Director Geralyn Sheehan. Among the innovations Sam found inspiring was David’s pride and joy: an innovative new way to dry and process yucca in order to store and sell it.

Sam (second from right) with her team at the NASA Space Apps Challenge

Since returning from Central America, Sam has been hooked on innovating to feed more people and make a better life for those in poverty. In April 2012, she embarked on a series of coding, programming and philanthropic hacking competitions to contribute technological solutions to the problem of chronic hunger and food insecurity in the developing world. The first event was the 48-hour NASA International Space Apps Challenge, one of the “world’s largest hackathons.” Fondly called the PineApple Project, her challenge generated an international community of solvers, several in developing countries, eager to collaborate. It won “The Most Disruptive Global Award” and was a runner-up for the competition’s People’s Choice prize. The PineApple Project is designed to help farmers and policymakers decide what crops to plant and where to plant them. Technology like the PineApple Project and Opportunity’s agricultural finance tools are critical to helping farmers in a variety of climates and growing conditions increase their crop yields so they can earn an income and better feed their families.

USAID’s Hacking for Hunger hackathon in September

Soon after the Space Apps Challenge, the PineApple Project’s newly formed team reconvened at Random Hacks of Kindness where they won the San Francisco Cross Hackathon award. In September the challenge was included in USAID’s Hacking for Hunger codeathon, an online and in-person mashup of participants from five countries that included volunteer programmers, designers, storytellers and development experts working around the clock. At the event, Sam’s team was recognized again but also received some harsh feedback: the solution was too simplistic to be realistically applied to the needs of smallholder farmers. Optimizing planting decisions was more complex than her prototype, she realized. There were great risks posed by climate change and more information was needed about crop rotation. Temperatures change drastically from year to year and variables such as market pricing influence planting decisions. These concerns are what prompted Opportunity to develop its data-collection methods and services for farmers such as GPS mapping, inputs of high-quality seed and fertilizers, market linkages and weather-index crop insurance, and it’s exciting to see how Sam’s innovative work also collects data to help meet the needs of farmers.

The USAID judges recognized the PineApple Project’s progress and admired the team’s enthusiasm and youthful idealism. Following Hacking for Hunger, USAID made valuable connections to INSEAD Business School and data experts, inviting Sam and Selena Georgiou of Growers’ Nation to The Iowa Hunger Summit (an event established by the World Food Prize Foundation), where she presented at the Open Data Showcase. Thanks to Hacking for Hunger, the PineApple Project was able to refine and expand its food and farming database with open data sets. Sam’s goal is that by January 2013, everything on the site will leverage geolocation, with accurate and relevant average temperatures, rainfall and topographical data. Soil data will also be included but, as it is notoriously difficult to determine because of variables such as runoff and fertilizers, she says her team is now evaluating Bayesian assessment tools (that is, probability-based hypotheses). They also are considering using SMS data to determine market pricing and pest information, though this can be costly without the support of a strategic partner.

Based on responses to the project’s community recruiting tool, root2market.org, Sam’s team has identified a market for their work and has the science and user testimonies to support the need. Today, the project is also made possible by her partnership with Phil Parker at INSEAD, Geeks Without Bounds, Softlayer, and sister project Growers’ Nation out of the MetOffice UK.

Speaking to Sam, I know I’m in the presence of a rare type of person: brimming over with idealism but with the smarts, experience, know-how and problem-solving skills to make headway on the causes she cares deeply about.

Sam personifies the power of one individual to impact thousands, and we’re thrilled to have her in the Opportunity family.

With the help of our strategic partners and supporters, we are able to:

• Fund loans and savings services for one million farmers in Africa
• Enable expansion of satellite branches, kiosks, point-of-sale and cell phone banking for our rural clients
• Build out protections for farmer families, including tailored savings programs and crop insurance, as well as establish relationships with input suppliers and crop buyers

Alice, fertilizer vendor

In Rwamagana, Rwanda, Alice Cyanzayire reviews fertilizer needs with local rice farmers.

With her first loan of $136, Alice Cyanzayire expanded her business by purchasing fertilizer in bulk for resale. Local farmers use Opportunity’s electronic payment system to purchase her products, and Alice provides technical expertise on their use. Alice strives to create strong relationships with farmers and work with them throughout the value chain, from input supply to post-harvest handling. A key component of Opportunity’s agricultural finance initiative is to develop alliances with all the partners that farmers need to succeed. We work with local suppliers to provide crop inputs and with distributors to facilitate the best profit margin for our clients. We also coordinate with NGOs and farmers’ groups to provide financial literacy education and training aimed at increasing yield.

Asuman, sugarcane farmer

Asuman Kyendakulya (left) measures his fields with a GPS device and help from Regional Agricultural Supervisor John Peter Emoi (center) and fellow farmer Joseph Mulandya.

For Asuman Kyendakulya of Mayuge, Uganda, Opportunity’s GPS plotting provides precise information about his land, including plot boundaries, altitude and access to water. From this survey, Asuman can accurately gauge seed, fertilizer and labor needs, as well as predict his sugarcane yield. GPS mapping helps farmers plan and manage their farms, increasing efficiency and income. Where farmland is often fragmented, knowing the exact acreage of their tillable land enables growers to utilize the latest agricultural practices for maximum productivity and environmental sustainability.

Learn how you can invest in farmers and Opportunity’s agricultural finance initiatives »

When you start a fundraiser for Opportunity International’s One Woman Holiday Challenge — and help us reach our goal of $450,000 between now and Dec. 31, 2012 — you’ll empower Opportunity’s women clients, funding 6,000 small business loans for women working their way out of poverty around the world. Every $150 given funds an Opportunity loan for a woman entrepreneur. Thanks to a generous anonymous donor, you’ll also double your impact. All gifts will be matched 1 to 1 up to $450,000! To learn more, and to start your fundraiser, go to opportunity.org/woman »

Opportunity clients like rice farmer Eugenie Nyirabagenzi, in Rwamagana, Rwanda, use microloans to grow their businesses and buy more seeds to produce better crop yields to feed their families and their communities.

Here’s one more reason to take action today: we’re offering a free trip. For every $150 donated to your One Woman fundraiser, you’ll be entered in a drawing to win two all-expense-paid spots on a 2013 Opportunity International Insight Trip. See firsthand the impact that microfinance can have on the lives of our women clients. Complete contest rules are available at opportunity.org/woman »

To date, donations through our One Woman fundraisers have empowered 1,198 women entrepreneurs! That is nearly 1,200 women who now have the opportunity to grow a small business; feed, clothe and educate their children; employ their neighbors; and have a greater voice in their community. Studies have shown that when women have economic opportunities, they are three times more likely than men to reinvest in their children and their communities. In families where women have an income, they have a voice in financial decisions, resulting in better nutrition, health and education for children — including girls. Invest in better futures, one woman at a time.

1.5 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty, and many are women entrepreneurs with a plan to help themselves, their families and their communities. All they need is a small opportunity.

Start your holiday giving off on the right foot by joining the One Woman Holiday Challenge. Launch a One Woman Holiday Challenge fundraiser at opportunity.org/woman »

Eugenie Nyirabagenzi owns a three-acre rice farm in Rwamagana, Rwanda. Until she became an Opportunity client, she couldn’t afford to hire workers during the planting and harvesting seasons, and she had difficulty making enough money to make ends meet. Today, she accesses Opportunity’s agricultural finance products, including loans; financial literacy training and advice from her loan officer, Jean de Dieu Kampayana; a safe and secure savings account; and weather-index crop insurance. With her increased profits, Eugenie is able to hire three of her neighbors and feed her children more nutritious meals. “I feel more secure now and I have increased hope for my life,” she says. She says that she dreams of the day when she will be able to purchase two more acres of land and enroll her children in good schools. 

Eugenie is one woman who is feeding her family and her community. We’re grateful that we have the opportunity to empower millions of clients like Eugenie every day.

If you’d like to invest in better futures, one woman at a time, visit opportunity.org/woman.

From all of us at Opportunity International, we wish you and your loved ones a wonderful Thanksgiving.

At the 2012 Peter Drucker Forum — Capitalism 2.0 — in Vienna

Included in the Forum’s introductory session on Thursday morning was a video greeting from the 101-year-old Doris Drucker, Peter’s wife and Board Member of the Drucker Institute. In the video, Doris sharpened the focus on our growing global population, our sense of cooperation versus competition, the education of our children and the use of GPS technology in planting trees. All this from a woman of her age was quite a way to begin this conference.

What I heard here is that there is great commonality between the private sector and what Opportunity International does. Our management, development and advancements in the ways in which we do business don’t differ all that much. We share common problems and opportunities. I think of it not only in terms of how we work, but in terms of our synergy with companies we work with now and those we hope to work with in the future. The partnerships have to succeed, and understanding the underlying motivations for all groups involved is something that is very apparent at this conference.

On Friday morning, I gave remarks to the Forum’s delegates from 33 nations and I could not help but reflect on a few of Drucker’s fundamental principles cited yesterday that ring very true in terms of organizational principles:

1. The customer comes first. For us, this means Opportunity clients. The benefits our clients derive are transformative. That is our goal.
2. Smart business requires integrated solutions. This is what Opportunity International does. Loans, access to savings, insurance and training are all included in the services we offer to our clients. This provides them with the tools they need to make those personal and community-based transformations happen.
3. 

   Vicki at Friday’s first plenary, speaking on “The best of both worlds: a hybrid approach to social enterprise.”

   Seek sustainability. Consider the impact of business on society. Some would say that the Opportunity model is a business one. We know that through Opportunity, a $1 investment is leveraged, having a $6 impact over five years. Working capital is really working!
4. Force positive sum games versus zero sum games. Building value is what we’re doing around our agriculture, technology and education initiatives. We’re taking money that’s been working for more than 40 years and forcing a positive sum game in which opportunity perpetuates more opportunity.

Something else that was a big topic and stuck with me is also a pillar for Opportunity International. This was: education as a fundamental right. Kids need to be in school and societies need to ensure that this happens. We know that better education creates stronger chances for success and there can’t be barriers to making sure our children are educated.

Finally — and this is very important — with anything we do, if we find that something is not working as it should, we need to address it and correct it. Often, this takes time. But if we are able to make simple tweaks to correct how we are delivering all of these wonderful products and services to our clients when we see the need to, we are able to more quickly enable the change that our clients deserve. They do, after all, come first.

YAO-New York treasurer Alexa Chu says:

I work in public finance making low-income community loans and managing a bond portfolio. The best part of it is enabling U.S. community leaders to do projects that would not be possible otherwise. I’ve always wanted to make a difference beyond my local community.

I recently became involved with Opportunity International through YAO-NY and I volunteered to represent Opportunity at the Global Festival. It was a great way to promote awareness of global poverty and we had the chance to talk about the work of Opportunity and to explain how people could get involved directly. This awareness is a huge stride forward in providing access to basic banking products for many of the severely under-banked areas of the world.

What We’re Watching

Starting last week on World Polio Day, Global Citizen Festival rolled out the short films they showed at the festival on their Facebook page. Two of our favorites are “Primary Education” and “Gender Equality.”

For “Primary Education,” globalcitizen.org reminds us, “Educating a child no matter where they are is one of the biggest steps we can take toward ending extreme poverty.” At Opportunity we couldn’t agree more, which is why we give supporters a number of giving levels to help send a girl to school. Because when you send a girl to school, you give her the chance for a healthier, more hopeful future.

Primary Education:

“Gender Equality” is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, and produced in partnership with the Half the Sky Movement. It makes sense that if we want to change the world, we need to start by empowering women with economic opportunity. Author Sheryl WuDunn says, “One of the best ways to fight poverty is to educate women and give them economic opportunity. Microfinance institutions are at the center of that solution.” That’s why 93% of Opportunity’s loans go to women. Because when women get a financial opportunity, they are almost three times more likely to reinvest their gains in their children, providing a powerful generational multiplier that accelerates economic growth.

Gender Equality:

Globally, nearly 870 million people are undernourished–about 12% of the world’s population.

It’s World Food Day and social media is buzzing with challenging facts and stats about hunger, like the ones in this post. This information is important. There’s no doubt that it’s one of the great injustices that children anywhere go to bed hungry, that women compose a disproportionate amount of malnourished people, and that smallholder farmers make up half of the world’s hungriest people. But there’s also hope. If countries and NGOs step up their efforts, we can still reach the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva announced at the opening session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) yesterday.

Hunger kills more people than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

A meeting of the Cocuricyi rice farming cooperative in Rwamagana, Rwanda, with agricultural loan officer Jean de Dieu Kampayana (at right)

The theme of this year’s World Food day is “Agricultural Cooperatives – Key to Feeding the World.” Cooperatives and organizations can be the key to ending world hunger, helping to provide food security, generating employment, and lifting people out of poverty. In his official World Food Day message for the FAO, da Silva says that for NGOs, agricultural cooperatives are “natural allies in the fight against hunger and extreme poverty.” With a decline in national investments in agriculture, millions of small producers struggle to cope with crises in climate, markets, and prices, especially during global food shortages like the one in 2007-2008. Though many countries have renewed their commitments to ending world hunger, concrete support often lags behind these verbal promises.

Half of the world’s hungry people are from smallholder farming communities.

Most of the world’s smallholder farmers are struggling to live and feed their families on less than $2 a day. According to IFAD, many have not been able to respond to increased demand because they lack access to assets and capital, and they face higher transaction costs, which makes it difficult for them to adapt and respond quickly to market changes. Smallholder farmers don’t compete on equitable terms with big commercial growers. Often, they lack access to markets because roads are poor or transportation is too expensive and higher food prices don’t always filter down to them. They often have to shortsell their produce to make ends meet in the growing season.

One out of four children–roughly 146 million–in developing countries is underweight.

In order to increase global food supplies, smallholder farmers need secure access to land and water; rural financial services to pay for seed, tools and fertilizer; roads and transportation to get their products to market; technology to receive and share the latest market information on prices; and greater representation in decision-making processes. Cooperatives help fill the void, enabling farmers to overcome these constraints by providing members with access to a range of assets and services.

Women make up a little over half of the world’s population, but they account for over 60% of the world’s hungry.

It’s through agricultural finance tools that organizations like Opportunity are implementing systems that help vulnerable small-scale farmers have greater food security. In Sub-Saharan Africa, these tools enable them to grow more crops, increase their incomes and feed their families with:

• Loans to buy high-quality seed and fertilizer
• Training in best farming practices
• Insurance to protect their crops from natural disasters
• Access to markets where they can sell their crops at a good price

To feed the Earth’s growing population, food production will have to DOUBLE by 2050.

This is what Opportunity does in its work with smallholder farmers in remote, rural and agricultural communities in five Sub-Saharan African countries. Our Trust Group model is essential for farmers who may lack access to market linkages, and may have never before had access to formal financial services. We’re able to reach them via mobile banking vehicles and e-banking products, as well as through our loan officers and field staff who train them on best farming practices and in financial literacy. In addition, farmers receive support from their fellow Trust Group members and they have a forum in which to discuss their challenges, voice their concerns, and have a role in decision-making processes.

Sixty percent of the 10.9 million children under age five who die in developing countries every year, die from malnutrition and hunger-related diseases.

“It has been said repeatedly that we have the means to eliminate hunger and malnutrition,” da Silva notes. “What is needed is the establishment of an enabling environment that allows small producers to take full advantage of available opportunities. Strong cooperatives and producer organizations are an essential part of that enabling environment.”

That environment is what Opportunity creates for smallholder farmers.

Looking for a new way to help Africa’s smallholder farmers? Buy our t-shirt, made by our partner Made for Good. Your purchase will help a farmer grow more food to feed her hungry family, her community and her country!

Meet Josephat Nivin of Kinyamakobe, Uganda

Like many farmers in Uganda, Josephat Nivin grows coffee, as well as maize, cassava, beans and livestock. This diversification is critical for his success, because crops like coffee take many months to yield fruit. Josephat’s first loan through Opportunity Uganda’s Mubende branch provided the required capital to purchase fertilizer, seeds and herbicides for his crop. Because his loan officer is knowledgeable about what will ensure the success of these crops, Josephat was well-equipped to purchase the proper amounts of each kind of input for his plot size.