business consulting

Project Description

• Country – Russian Federation
• Donor - TACIS
• Duration – 36  months
• Status – completed

Tacis funded project to promote the start-up of rural savings and credit co-operatives in selected oblasts of Russia. Support and advise the MoAF in developing and expanding the legal basis and organisational and economic strategies to promote farm credit through credit co-operatives. Assistance and training to staff of relevant institutions in providing adequate services to rural credit co-operatives. Development of a national rural credit co-operatives' network.

• 70 new credit co-operatives have been founded;
• three regional co-operatives have been registered;
• the credit co-operative framework law has been prepared and accepted by the Duma;
• 3500 members of credit co-operatives have been trained;
• training centres have been designed and established;
• a 30 min film on development of credit cooperation in Russia has been made and distributed,
• a range of instruction guidelines, manuals and books have been elaborated.

Specific activities implemented under the project included:

• Establishment of credit and saving co-operatives in pilot regions;
• Support to existing co-operative financial institutions on local and oblast levels (first and second level credit and saving co-operatives);
• Elaboration and set-up of a functioning auditing system for the credit co-operatives;
• Assistance to the credit co-operatives in set-up of financial management procedures, including accounting and monitoring of loans;
• Training of staff of the co-operatives in credit assessment and supervision, processing of loan applications and loan monitoring;
• Dissemination of the information and experience via mass media, manuals, TV stations, press releases and radio.