A new four-year, US$10m project led by the World Council of Credit Unions (Woccu) aims to strengthen credit unions in Ukraine.
The GROW Project, funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), seeks to expand access to finance through credit unions for start-up initiatives and existing legal entities looking to expand their operations. As part of this, Ukrainian credit unions will receive support to assist entrepreneurs, micro, medium and small enterprises (MSMEs), co-operatives, farms and other individuals in rural areas of the country.
Areas of focus include increasing credit union liquidity to make business finance more available and improving the enabling environment for credit union operations. The project also aims to deepen the technical capacity of credit unions to provide and promote their financial services and address the specific challenges of women and other vulnerable populations in accessing financing for business development.
Regulation will be another important aspect of the project, which will see Woccu work with credit unions in Ukraine to adapt to new and upcoming prudential regulations.
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In addition, the project will focus on raising public awareness about the overall benefits of credit unions, and implement activities to improve financial literacy for new and existing credit union members.
The project will see Woccu work closely with Ukraine’s United Credit Unions (UCUs), the national credit union apex
Woccu will work closely with the credit union apexes in Ukraine, to develop processes, products and partnerships that maximise credit union reach and positively impact local communities and economies.
The GROW Project will build on the work started by the Woccu/USAID Credit for Agriculture Producers (CAP) Project in Ukraine (2016-2024), which ends in September.
“It is a remarkable feeling to know that much of the great work our CAP Project team did to ensure credit unions can provide lending to businesses can now be further implemented through GROW,” said Angelina Tracy, Woccu vice president of Strategic Growth and Partnerships. “We look forward to working with our partner credit unions to ensure they can increase liquidity and grow their business loan portfolios to better support their local communities,” she added.
