Brac has suggested using microfinance institutions (MFIs) to allocate funds from the government's stimulus package to farmers and small businesses as the country reels from the economic downturn due to the coronavirus pandemic.
MFIs could ensure a bigger role as intermediaries to reach out to farmers and businesses with funds from the package, the development organization said in a statement on Friday.
This will not only help small businesses and small scale farmers but at the same time support the MFIs which are facing a massive economic challenge as well, said Brac Executive Director Asif Saleh in the statement.
The government is preparing to combat the economic fallout caused by the shutdown through 18 stimulus packages worth Tk95,619 crore amounting to 3.3% of the country’s GDP.
From this, Tk77,750 crore will be lent to small and medium size businesses through banks, under the supervision of the finance ministry and the central bank.
Brac’s microfinance borrowers have greatly benefited from withdrawing their savings in these trying times during the last few weeks, according to the statement.
The organization electronically disbursed close to Tk115 crore to its borrowers in the last few weeks as well, the statement says.
Their statement also added that the country's Covid-19 testing facilities were under tremendous pressure.
To help ease the test process, in partnership with the Directorate General of Health Service (DGHS), Brac will scale up its sample collection kiosk model with 100 kiosks in the short term, and eventually ramp up to about 600 kiosks at key hotspots in the country.
The scarcity of labs outside Dhaka is causing long delays in results coming back.
With the increase of sample collection facilities, the capacity of the labs outside Dhaka needs to increase significantly to see the full benefit of the scaling up of sample collection, the statement also said.
