MISFA’s Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Program was initiated in October 2006.[1]

The MISFA SME Program engages implementing partners by offering:

• Credit lines that would allow them to on-lend to qualified SMEs;

• Guarantee arrangements designed to encourage partners to provide their own funds to lending;

• Technical assistance to banks and MFIs at various levels e.g. training and mentoring SME loan officers; and

• Advocacy for an adequate legal and regulatory environment supporting the SME financing sector.

Partners have lent to a wide array of businesses across agricultural and non-agricultural production, as well as to the service and trade sectors.

Most loans have been disbursed in large provincial cities,  including Herat, Mazar, Jalalabad, and Kabul, but a significant  number of loans have also been  made in smaller localities such  as Kunduz, Faryab, Takhar, Jawzjan, Parwan, Baghlan,   Samangan, Bamyan, Badghees, Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, Kapisa, Nemroz, Saripul, and towns in Badakhshan.

The SME Program will continue its efforts towards increasing the access of Afghan entrepreneurs to SME loans by facilitating the capacity building of existing and potential partners through technical assistance, as well as financial support (lines of credit or guarantee facilities).

At the moment, very few commercial banks have shown interest in developmental finance, with many focusing their activities on corporate financing and other investments inside and outside of Afghanistan. There is also a lack of enabling environment at the policy level to encourage commercial banks to engage in developmental finance.

Given these current challenges, MISFA will work closely with MFIs to establish small enterprise lending windows or strengthen their existing individual lending products serving the upper end of microfinance or lower end of SMEs. MISFA will also pursue working with the existing and potential new banking partners fostering a developmental finance mission in Afghanistan.