Kenya to benefit from Ksh.11B investment partnership by Oportunity International, Oikocredit

The investment entails an investment of Ksh.11 billion (USD $100 million) in financial institutions that are benefiting from Opportunity International’s EduFinance program, reaching an estimated 1.6 million children.

Speaking at the signing of the Memorandum in Nairobi, Caroline Mulwa Investments Manager Oikocredit East and Southern Africa, said the main agenda of the partnership is to provide social impact in the education sector. 

“We are very delighted for this great partnership between opportunity international and Oikocredit... Through Opportunity international, we will provide technical assistance to financial institutions and to schools to enable them to create sustainability and to enable the financial institutions develop a portfolio around the education sector. We envisage that there will be a financial gap and Oikocredit will then come in with the funding,” she said.

In Kenya, the initial funding is envisaged to be around 20 million USD, which will be used to fund financial institutions that will then on-lend to schools and parents.

"We will begin with 5 to 10 institutions who we hope can reach about 1000 schools across the country," she added.

Representing Opportunity International Andrew McCusker Head of Education Finance said: “Our main aim is to get as many children to access schools as possible and we need more financial organizations lending to schools especially in Kenya, and to enable the children from dropping from schools." 

Oikocredit and Opportunity International will mobilize the funds over the next three years with an initial, near-term focus on Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Uganda.

The collaboration is a distinctive agreement between tenured, mission-aligned global organizations to support the growth in access to quality education particularly for children from low-income families.

Under the terms of the agreement, both organizations will target financial institutions serving the needs of the most vulnerable populations, providing financial capital and training in support of the development of the education sector in the target markets.

As a global leader in education finance in low-income countries, Opportunity’s EduFinance program has facilitated $442 million in loans to support the access to quality education.

Opportunity’s EduFinance programming includes an Education Finance technical assistance facility and the Education Quality program.