Financial Access for Sustainable and Transformational (FAST) Growth Project

The development objective of the Financial Access for Sustainable and Transformational Growth Project for Tanzania is to promote access to finance and growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania. The project comprises of five components. The first component, facilitate access to finance to SMEs and innovative startup’s objective is to stimulate financing for SMEs and innovative start-ups by financial institutions. It consists of following sub-components: (i) commercial wholesale finance entity; and (ii) restructuring of the People’s Bank of Zanzibar (PBZ). The second component, strengthening the credit infrastructure and value chain financing objective is to narrow the information gap on potential borrowers to help lower their perceived risk and encourage banks and other financial institutions to develop appropriate products for SMEs and underserved groups such as women and farmers who remain outside the banking sector. It consists of following sub-components: (i) strengthening credit reporting systems (CRS); and (ii) value chain financing. The third component, promoting SMEs growth in select value chains will support SMEs’ capacity-building efforts within value chains and foster links and access to market infrastructure and services. It consists of following sub-components: (i) strengthening SMEs capabilities; and (ii) strengthening market access services and infrastructure for SMEs. The fourth component, legal and regulatory reforms and capacity building objective is to support policy and legal reforms related to the project. The fifth component, technical assistance and project implementation, monitoring and reporting objective is to ensure the proper management monitoring and administration of the project.