Social impact investor Oikocredit provided a loan of EUR1.5 million to Coopérative avec Conseil d’Administration de Vivriers et de Cajou (Cavica), a leading cashew producer cooperative in Côte d’Ivoire. Cavica works towards alleviating poverty in disadvantaged communities in the northern rural areas of Côte d’Ivoire and supports the development of farmer entrepreneurship. The cashew cooperative has a solid and diversified portfolio of domestic and international clients.
To support Cavica during the cashew season, Oikocredit is providing a credit line for the procurement, transport, storage, and further sale of raw cashew nuts. Oikocredit is Cavica’s first international lender. Despite the various challenges of Covid-19, Cavica has found safe ways of assisting farmers and delivering quality cashew nuts to local processors and exporters, thereby continuing to support the livelihoods of cashew farmers in northern Côte d’Ivoire.
El Hadj Konate Arouna, Cavica’s Chairman of the Board of Directors said: “After more than seven years of hard work and lack of support from many traditional banking institutions, we finally met Oikocredit in 2020. Oikocredit understood our needs and offered to provide support to Cavica and all its members coming from northern rural areas of Côte d’Ivoire. With this loan, we are able to better position ourselves on the international market. With the increase of working capital we are able to acquire the necessary logistics to achieve our business objectives and support improvements of the standard of living of farmers while achieving a higher social impact in the local communities.”
Yves Komaclo, Oikocredit’s Investment Manager for West Africa, stated: “We are excited to become Cavica’s first international lender and to help the cooperative strengthen its relationship with cashew smallholder members and buyers. Our partnership with Cavica – whose outreach focuses on cashew producers in disadvantaged regions of northern Cote d’Ivoire – will further Oikocredit’s mission to support low-income people and create higher social impact within the communities we serve.”
This article was originally published by Oikocredit.
