Sierra Leone Second Financial Inclusion Project

The development objective of the Second Financial Inclusion Project for Sierra Leone is to promote a more inclusive and resilient financial sector for individuals and micro, small, and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs). The project comprises of four components. The first component, adoption and usage of transaction account’s objective is to support adoption and usage of transaction accounts at a formal financial institution or mobile money provider. It consists of following sub-components: (i) enhancing access points for digital payments; (ii) national payments system infrastructure development; and (iii) enabling environment for increased adoption and usage of transaction accounts. The second component, increasing access to credit for MSMEs objective is to facilitate access to affordable credit for MSMEs, strengthen supervision of the microfinance institution (MFI) and non-bank financial institution (NBFI) sector, and improve the national credit infrastructure. It consists of following sub-components: (i) enhancing the supply of affordable and innovative financial services for MSMEs; (ii) enhanced supervisory capacity; and (iii) enabling a modern credit infrastructure. The third component, project management, monitoring, and evaluation will support: (a) strengthening the capacity of Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL), Ministry of Finance of Sierra Leone (MoF), Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Apex Bank, SME Agency (SMEDA), and relevant ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) for the coordination, design, and implementation of the project; (b) the administrative, technical, financial management (FM), environment, and social safeguards of the project by the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) under the oversight of the Project Steering Committee (PSC); (c) coordination among all institutional partners to ensure the efficient flow of information among all actors and coordination with the private sector; (d) the establishment of a monitoring and evaluation (M and E)...