Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR) supports the development objectives of the government of Rwanda by aligning all its interventions to the national policy frameworks including the Financial Sector Development Programme (FSDP) II and the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS). AFR’s key focus areas are the development of SACCOs and savings groups, agricultural finance, innovations with a focus on digital services, risk mitigation including micro insurance and the establishment of informal sector pension schemes, as well as market development and facilitation.

In June 2011 KPMG was contracted by DFID to establish AFR as a company limited by guarantee and its operating systems, carrying out start up activities for AFR. KPMG was afterward contracted to provide fiduciary oversight of the company. We continue to play a fiduciary oversight role with emphasis on financial management, human resource management and procurement administration as well as administrative /logistical support, so that AFR objectives as set out in the program document are met.

During its first five years of operation, AFR working with different institutions developed and implemented a variety of financial market development interventions that enabled over 1,000,000 Rwandans to access and use financial services. On 10th May 2016, AFR launched its strategy document for phase II that is funded by DFID, Sweden, USAID and the MasterCard Foundation to the tune of USD 35m with plans to reach 1,840,000 people of which 60% aim to be women and 20% youth. With the triumphs made under Phase 1 and capacity the company demonstrated to address many challenges to support the development of the financial sector, in Phase II, these gains may be scaled up and consolidated, ensuring the sustainability of the positive outcomes achieved to date.