This five-year programme starting from July 2006, Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) and its partner organisations (non-governmental organisations, Micro-finance Institutions (MFIs), rural support programs) would be the implementing agency.
This 'Micro Finance Innovation and Outreach Programme' will be national in scope but focus its activities on rural areas where access to financial services is insufficient and where existing services do not adequately respond to the constraints faced by rural households, individuals or micro-enterprises.
Programme resources will largely be concentrated to benefit poor communities and the poorer rural districts of the country.
The target groups of this programme would be small farmers, livestock owners, traders and micro-entrepreneurs; women and woman-headed households; and rural poor households living below the poverty line.
The programme would improve livelihood of about 0.15 million rural households, a high proportion of which consists of poor individuals not receiving loans or other financial services.
It will support four investment components i e Innovation and Outreach Facility: this aims at expanding partner organisations' product range and outreach through flexible and demand-driven funding mechanism that will be accessible to Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund's (PPAF) partner organisations and will combine loan capital and grants.
Any partner organisation registered with the PPAF can submit a project proposal for financing. This facility will help partner organisations develop new approaches for expanding their rural finance outreach.
Through young partner programme, the PPAF's capacity will be expanded to provide micro-finance services to rural areas by helping it develop new partner organisations while also strengthening the capacity of existing partner organisations by improving skill of the manpower.
The programme will also support partner organisations in designing and implementing their proposals under innovation and outreach facility; and addressing key cross-cutting themes more effectively (e g gender, poverty outreach, livestock enterprise development, risk management, financial sustainability of micro-finance operations).
And lastly through Programme management, it will provide incremental management resources necessary to enable the PPAF to implement the programme.