“Yikri means ‘set to take off’ in local language,” said Claire Lossiane, director of Yikri, during an interview in our premises in Luxembourg. Set up in 2014 by Entrepreneurs du Monde (EdM), an NGO, Yikri provides financial services to the poorest parts of Burkina Faso’s population, especially women not covered by existing microfinance institutions, or MFIs, in the peri-urban districts of Ouagadougou and in rural areas.
Stunningly, the loans (which are of small size, with the repayment period and frequency dependent on the activity) are approved without any form of guarantee or joint liability. Lossiane commented that local banks are not active as they require strong guarantees for individuals, and even for Yikri.
Developing a sense of community
“People are at a high level of misery when approaching Yikri,” said Lossiane. She explained that joining a community helps individuals to reinforce ties with other people, to help each other and even innovate by joining forces.
Belonging to the Yikri community is “a guarantee of trust between beneficiaries who don’t know each other... so all we have to do is [to get familiar with] everyone’s needs, and we can make the connection,” noted Lossiane. Through Yikri’s agricultural advisors, she recalled that the recipient of a loan for an egg incubator was connected to another looking desperately for chicks.
Yikri: helping beneficiaries help themselves
Armed with academic background in agro-ecology, the agricultural advisors of Yikri are promoting “very simple, inexpensive and environmentally-friendly techniques,” such as using neem-based pesticides.
The agricultural advisors at Yikri provide not only monthly training courses but also accompany the debtors by regularly visiting them. These meetings encourage “more sharing of practices between farmers.” Lossiane thinks that there is a desire to learn as they see their income increasing.
Yikri offers “helping hand credits (coup de pouce)” to initiate a project with individuals…who are sometimes illiterate.
Yikri provides a wide range complementary services such as trainings to better manage their income generating activities (IGAs), support from experts on agricultural methods in rural areas, adapted health insurance schemes supporting up to four family members, support from social workers connecting beneficiaries to the relevant organisations, discussions on social and gender issues, support to get official documents, amongst others.
Yikri is also confronted with situations where a husband may ask his wife to get part of a loan for his own personal spending. Lossiane explained that the challenge of social workers at Yikri is then to get the couple in the same room to better understand the facts, then to find non-confrontational tactics to bring the husband onboard so that the woman can go on with the initially planned economic activity.
Is an economic project a condition sine qua non to get a loan?
“Yikri offers “helping hand credits (coup de pouce)” to initiate a project with individuals…who are sometimes illiterate,” said Lossiane. It starts at the very basic level, whereby an individual is asked by the trainer about “what he likes in life and what we could do to help him.” Mini projects are then put in place to support them step by step toward an economic activity.
Low overdue payments despite the absence of guarantees
Despite the lack of guarantees, Lossiane is proud to report that the level of overdue payments (more than 30 days late) “is no more than 3%” at Yikri, whereas she said it is generally around 5%, according to the BCEAO (Central Bank of Western African States). “It shows that someone well accompanied wants to meet her/his commitments.”
Broadening the funding base
“The financial power and the network programmes of EdM enable Yikri to achieve its social mission and ensure its financial viability,” commented Lossiane. The majority of the Yikri’s funding comes from the “solidarity microfinance” programme of EdM. It also relies on SiDi (), , a crowdfunding platform, and Ada Luxembourg (Support for Autonomous Development) which is a member of and is the largest NGO involved in microfinance in Luxembourg.
How is Lossiane planning to deploy the money from the award?
Burkino Faso currently suffers from a high number of internally displaced peoples because of “jihad insecurity in the north within the country.” With EdM, Lossiane therefore plans to support individuals who have moved into the peripheral areas surrounding Ouagadougou.
Fittingly, the theme of European Microfinance Award in 2024 is expected to be about refugees and forcedly displaced peoples.
This article was published for the Delano Finance newsletter, the weekly source for financial news in Luxembourg. .