Financing livestock trade in Kenya, Mali & Somalia

The scoping paper “Financing livestock trade: formal and informal finance in Kenya, Mali and Somalia” (2022, 60pp) by Rupsha Banerjee et al looks at the degree to which traders marketing livestock from the rangelands use formal financial services including savings, payments, credit and insurance, and examines the development of these services.

The study found that:

• Livestock marketing chains in all three countries consist of multiple channels that connect different production areas to local, regional, national and export markets;
• Financial services in rural areas in the three countries are informal; inclusion of formal finance is low, with payments made through mobile phones being the only notable exception;
• Very few traders took loans for their working capital from formal financial intermediaries, but rather started their trade with their savings, sometimes topped up by family and friends,and occasionally loans from larger traders along the chain.

The research is being carried out within the framework of the SPARC (Supporting Pastoralism and Agriculture in Recurrent and Protracted Crises) project at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), UK.

Posted on 29 April 2022 in Pastoralism & Marketing