Financing Solar Irrigation Pumps- Zambia

Lack of Access to solar irrigation equipment system- by smallholders to increase agriculture production due to limited access to finance for farming inputs that leads to 40% capacity utilization causing increased poverty and hunger.     

 In Zambia and Africa at large currently, the smallholder farmers who produce 30-40> of our local food supply are largely dependent on available rainfall for agricultural production, making them particularly vulnerable to climate change-induced water shortages. Irrigation could play a crucial role in providing farmers with resilience to drought and water scarcity, reducing the risk of crop failures, and improving agricultural production.

Lack of digitization and mobile banking to access funds- which limits reach to the most disadvantaged customers.

Limited access to finance and innovative solution beneficiaries   

Tivwane has developed an innovative credit facility that seeks finance mainly access to solar water pumps and high quality and appropriate agricultural inputs to rural-based small-scale farmers to improve crop yield. Tivwane seeks to impact these communities by increasing their income and building their resilience to the effects of climate change. 
The company will avail asset-based loans to farmers to acquire solar-powered irrigation equipment and other tools, at friendly market rates, either as individuals or groups. It also seeks to improve access to Agro-inputs (hybrid seeds, fertilizers, and agrochemicals) through its inputs financing directly to farmers or cooperatives. Farmers will also be trained in loan management and other financial and enterprise management skills to understand and fulfil their credit obligations. Smallholder farmers will be trained on Good Agronomic Practices (GAP). This is geared towards enhancing farmers' adoption of conservation farming and climate-smart agriculture that includes more significant use of organic matter, the appropriate use of mineral fertilizers.
Improved seeds, irrigation, and mechanization (including solar water pumps). As of 2020, 
Tivwane has supported about 500 farmers with agriculture inputs credit for highbred high-quality seeds, fertilizer and agrochemicals on credit and we have disbursed 20 solar water pumps for 2020 and we also did solar water pumps irrigation system demand feasibility study in 2021 with support from UNFPA and AFRI Labs after winning UNFPA’s 2021 Climate HackLab challenge of $K10 Grants.(https://esaro.unfpa.org/en/news/unfpa-partners-young-gamechangers-build-climate-resilience-africa) The company now needs funding to scale its operation of a solar asset-based loan innovation project with small-scale farmers in Katete, Petauke, Lundazi, and Chipata where they have already established branches

Market strategy:
The primary technology the company will be promoting is solar-based irrigation units. The potential for solar, not only in Zambia, but sub-Saharan Africa remains quite huge. To date only around 50,000 solar pumps are thought to have been sold across Sub-Saharan Africa for irrigation. A key constraint has been financing for the equipment. In Zambia of the 1.75 million (21.1%) of Zambia's adult population dependent on agriculture, only 27% (majorly commercial farms) have access to formal financing compared to 42% in other sectors. For small-scale farmers, only 18% have had access to or have used

Our business model involves working with the smallholder farmers, individually or in groups, and do a 90% financing of the equipment required

Tivwane is promoting the use of solar pumps amongst small-scale horticulture farmers. Some of the positive social and environmental impacts that the pump brings to farmers include: 1. Access to irrigation equipment and solar pumps will ensure that the farmers are able to do more production rounds, unlike the current case where they rely on rained farming. Climate-smart interventions introduced through the project will generate long-term benefits in terms of soil fertility. 2. Zero Fuel Costs - Solar water pumps are powered by solar panels and all their energy comes from the sun and is completely free. This is a major advantage over fossil fuel pumps which require a constant supply of fuel to work. This not only causes emissions but also drives up the cost of farming. Solar energy also has an advantage over manual irrigation as it saves human based energy and time. 3. Less Labor & Maintenance - Solar water pumps can really reduce the amount of labour and time that is needed to irrigate your crops. After connecting the system, it starts working and pumping water. The pumps also require less labour and maintenance compared to fossil fuel pumps. One will never run out of fuel when irrigating the crops and the pumps we promote have a good warranty period compared to fossil fuel pumps require a lot of servicing and are regular. 4. Environmentally Friendly - Solar water pumps are sustainable and use renewable energy. Apart from the innovation itself, we also have other activities that we promote to de-risk the credit facility we offer to farmers 5. The project will also look at enhancing market access for the farmers' horticulture produce by facilitating linkage to urban buyers for their tomatoes and off-takers for vegetables. 6. Other benefits to farmers will be: increased productivity, increased incomes, diversification of rural livelihoods, employment creation, directly and indirectly, reduction of farmer’s vulnerability to climate chang

Our main target group comprises women of childbearing age, small scale farmers, and vulnerable households near or below poverty line: Wage laborers, tenants, smallholders, retail first-level buyers and small entrepreneurs and agricultural produce, small SMEs such as Agro-dealers. Most in this group belong to active poor who have no access to finance due to lack of collateral and mostly affected by malnutrition. These People live on less $2 PPP to $3 PPP a day, these are small scale farmers and entrepreneurs who buy seeds and other farming inputs from Agro dealer. This project focuses on the poor, especially women and youths who they often run the risk of attack and abuse, a second audience category of beneficiary is active poor (especially farmers and small-scale Entrepreneurs) who cannot receive loans from other financial institutions or grantors

The organisation's personnel team is led by Mr Agripa Maposa. He is the founder and current Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He has 11 years of work experience of which 7 years in microfinance, with Vision Fund Zambia International, a subsidiary of World Vision International. Mr Agripa is supported by:

• Mr Chrispine Banda – Co-Director & Human Resource and Administration Manager. He has 8 years of work experience, 7 of which were in government as an Administration Manager with the Education Department.
• Mr Edwin Ulaya – Chief Finance Officer. Mr Edwin is a Charted Accountant who holds a membership with the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (ZICA). He has over 12 years of work experience including working at Wallis Chartered Accountants and Vision Fund Zambia. He has held various senior management positions among them as a Regional Head – Finance and Administration
• Mrs. Inonge Mutonga – Chief Operation Officer. She has 10 years of work experience, 8 of which were in microfinance. She has worked in various positions including managerial positions. Mrs Inonge has also been involved in project implementation with various organisations that include Vision Fund and Agola Microfinance Zambia where she was first a loan officer and later a branch Manager.

  The company also has skilled and diverse personnel both in terms of gender and youth. We believe in talent building and we have matched the right people with the required technical skills experience and educational requirements. As such we have assembled a well-matched talent team which is the backbone of our company. Tivwane currently has a total of 22 employees permanent 15 female and 7 males. The roles of the various staff are illustrated in the organisation chart below. 

As of 2023 we servicng 1200 customers

Tivwane money solutions are one of the fastest growing MFIs in Zambia and amongst the few that deal in agriculture lending directly to smallholder farmers. Since its founding 4 years ago i.e., in 2018, the company has been able to disburse USD 116,378 and invested USD 350,000.00 (debt and equity) into the company.

Agriculture lending has been a key market for Tivwane over the years, especially asset and inputs financing. As of 2020. We arranged procurement of agriculture solar pumps (23) loan and facilitated agricultural input access for 600 farmers in particular horticulture farmers enabling access to assets and inputs such as hybrid high-quality seeds, fertiliser, and agrochemicals on credit. The company has been able to forge a partnership with development partners such as SNV to offer training on entrepreneurship, crop store, market facilitation and diversified financial services (savings, credit, remittances, and insurance) to customers. 

We are seeking for  technical, legal, cultural,  partners to  help advance our  solutions through monetary and/or non-monetary support.

we also need financial support to achieve the following plan:

Tivwane's current growth plan is limited within Zambia where we feel there are not enough rural-based MFI activities taking place. The company's long-term aspiration is to be a leading rural financial service provider in Zambia. Within the next 5 years, Tivwane seeks to have an outreach of 10,000 direct customers. This we hope to achieve through highlighting the benefits of climate-smart agriculture technologies in particular solar pumps towards improving crop production.

In the short term, Tivwane seeks to work closely with HGT to promote the use of irrigation equipment amongst horticulture farmers within Lusaka and eastern provinces as aforementioned. HGT has over 2,000 horticulture farmers they are working with. Of this base, most are still dependent on rain-fed growing, especially those doing vegetables or manual irrigation which is tedious and time-consuming.

We aim to reach out to 1500 farmers of which 1,000 will be able to directly take up our Agri-loan products. We will achieve this gradually, with the first year seeing us reach cumulatively 500 farmers, 1,000 farmers in year 2 and 1500 farmers in year 3. We intend to market financing for solar irrigation pumps and Agri- inputs to the farmers. In this, we aim to supply over 500 pumps to these farmers (1 pump per every 3 farmers) through Inputs based loan products, market and improve our agricultural inputs loans to the farmers with a minimum of 2 of the 3 farmers acquiring input-based loans. Our target markets are farmers within Chongwe in Lusaka Province, Chipata and Katete, Lundazi and Petauke in Eastern Province.

Value Proposition and Project Attractiveness. 
Tivwane goes and does what others won’t do. As per the company, their value proposition is their services modelled around research and partnerships with NGOs and based on the use of technology (through GTI Pay Platform) to deliver products that promote financial inclusivity, capacity-building, and entrepreneurship skills development to rural communities in a manner that is profitable, sustainable, and socially impactful.
1.Agri-business Loan extension and financial literacy trainings  : Involves availing Asset based loans to farmers, at friendly market rates,  either as individuals or groups, to enable them access Agro-inputs (hybrid seeds, fertilizers, and agro-chemicals), solar powered pumps and Dutch build horticulture equipment’s and machineries available from HGT. Farmers will also be trained loan management and other financial and enterprise management skills to enable them understand and fulfil their loan obligations. 
2.Establishing 4 outreach branches: There will be 5 hubs within each new branch in the expansion provinces established with local Agro-inputs providers and farmers cooperatives. This hubs will be centers for farmers to procure and collect equipment’s and inputs advanced on credit to them. The hubs will also provide training services and serve as outputs aggregators.  
3.Farmer Training and technical support on climate-smart practices: This will majorly be offered through HGT. Smallholder farmers will be trained  on Good Agronomic Practices (GAP). This is geared towards enhancing farmers adoption of conservation farming and climate smart agriculture that include greater use of organic matter, the appropriate use of mineral fertilizers, improved seeds, irrigation and mechanization (including solar water pumps), and general principles of land and water management. Also the safe use of pesticides and minimum residue levels (MRL) will be a key training items to enhance food safety practices. 
4. Developing market linkages:  The project will seek to establish to strengthen existing markets.

Tivwane’s current growth plan is limited mainly within Zambia where we feel there isn’t enough rural based MFI activities taking place. The company’s long-term aspirations is to be a leading rural financial service provider in Zambia. Within the next 5 years Tivwane seeks to have an outreach of 10,000 direct customers. This we hope to achieve through showcasing the benefits of climate smart agriculture technologies in particular solar pumps towards improving production and food security.

In the short term Tivwane seeks to work closely with HGT to promote use of irrigation equipment amongst horticulture farmers within Lusaka and eastern provinces as aforementioned. HGT has over 2,000 horticulture farmers that they are working with. Of this base most are still dependent on rain fed growing especially those doing vegetables or manual irrigation that is tedious and time consuming. We aim to grow our current network to about 1500 farmers within the next 3 years. The growth will be gradual with the first year seeing it grow to 500 farmers in the 1st year, 1000 farmers by the 2nd and 1500 farmers by the third year. We intend to market the solar and treadle irrigation pump to them to enhance efficiency and productivity of their farms. In this we project to supply over 500 pumps to these farmers (1 pump per every 3 farmers) and with this market and improve our agricultural inputs loans to the farmers with a minimum of 2 of the 3 farmers acquiring input-based loans. Our target market are farmers within Chongwe in Lusaka Province, Chipata and Katete, Lundazi and Petauke in Eastern Province

To measure  the  progress toward our project  impact goals will do the folling:

 1. Set goals & expectations: 2. Define strategies:

3.Select metrics & set targets: 4. Measure, track, use the data, and
report: E.G. How many farmers have increased productivity (2) how
many farmers increased incomes (2) how many have diversified
rural livelihoods. (3) How many have Reduction in poverty and
improve of livelihood of people in the district. (4) How many have
Increase in food security; contribute to the economic growth (5) how
many employment we have created from this project. (6) How much
gas emission has been reduced to mitigate climate

Key Performance Indicators: a. Impacts outcomes. b. outputs, and inputs c. Profit Margin (PM) profit margin to guarantee sustainability. d. Revenue per client/member (RPC) e. Average Class Attendance (ACA) Trainings f. Client Retention Rate (CRR) – Retention rate for our customers. Result-oriented approach. Our emphasis on result-oriented monitoring and evaluation lies in measuring”: To what degree have the original project objectives and subsequent interventions been achieved? In this project our main objective is to reduce poverty, so will be interested to know the results of how many beneficiaries they have recorded Reduction in poverty and improve of livelihood of people in the district. 2. Constructivist approach. Will focus on constructivist M&E approach assumes that people are the motor behind the development of novelties and societal change processes? Constructivist methods will focus heavily on monitoring and evaluation of the progress of the collective learning process. 3. Reflexive approach. We call the most recent approach in M&E-country reflexive, our Reflexive methods focus on both a collective learning process (in groups of actors and in networks). Indirectly we seek to create about 400 jobs attributable to the project as follows: • With improved access to credit to enable access to inputs and equipment’s, the project envisions farmers expanding their business. Farmers to appreciate and increase the use of high-quality farm inputs (hybrid seeds and agrochemicals), services and irrigation equipment.

 This will enable the creation of on farm support service jobs to assist the farmers. It is estimated that each farm requires 5 extra days of labour per month during a 5-month production cycle, which translates into around 0.15 FTEs. With irrigation the farmers will be able to do at least 2 cycles a year by end of year 3. This will create a total of 0.3 FTE per farmer by year 3 of which 50% of the required labour will come from family

Our theory of change is the our  oproject will enhance availability, accessibility and utilisation of nutritious food among the smallholder households.

Vegetables rank third in the share of the urban households’ monthly food budget in nearly all major urban areas of Zambia. With access to credit to purchase better quality inputs and set up irrigation equipment’s and improved access to extension support, farmers yields will increase per hectare. Vegetable have a high nutritional value that makes them an important part of household diet.

The project will contribute to local and national food security by sustainably increasing the production of fresh vegetables in the targeted districts, which is achieved by (1) boosting horticulture yields by at least 25% and (2) reducing supply chain losses, while simultaneously ensuring that the vegetables are safe to consume. At the same time, the project provides a pathway out of poverty for Zambian smallholder farmers. By enabling access to credit farmers will be able to get hybrid seeds, inputs on credit, mechanization services, and marketing services to improve their income from horticulture production. Higher productivity and improved quality will boost their income which they can in turn use to graduate to expand their farming, while also having enough money for diversified home food consumption and other household expenses such as school fees.

Participating farmers will also be trained on the risks posed by pesticides and how best to use them through training activities on correct input usage (including for example topics on Maximum Residue Levels). This will reduce farm families’ and consumers’ risk to diseases and complications associated with agrochemical usage.

Tivwane money solution has partnered with GTiPay Inc USA and developed a digital mobile wallet which offer  Digital offering that increases the efficiency of the lending process and enables more transparent lender-borrower relationships.

Ecommerce platform has wide reaching online appeal to African consumers enabling 24/7 ordering & easy to purchase items online or via a mobile App that provides drop shipment processing. GTiPay Banking & Merchant Payments Apps will service Banks, MFI’s Telco’s Large Communities, Schools, Farming Cooperatives, Retail Merchants, Petrol Stations, Super Markets, Mini Marts, Businesses, Healthcare & Government Agencies, plus Tax Revenue Collections GTiPay Mobile Banking & Vending Platforms provide value added services to: Agency Banking to facilitate: ▪ Merchant Banks ▪ A/C Registration ▪ Cash-in ▪ Cash-out Mobile Payments - Agency Banking Functions

Tivwane will offer credit to enable farmers access inputs and assets loan for purchase irrigation equipment’s and pumps.  Zambia has about 1.75 million (21.1%) of its adult population dependent on Agriculture. (Fin Scope 2020). Only
27% of them have access to formal financing (majorly commercial farms). Only 18% of smallholder farmers have
had access to or used formal financial services. Although most farmers cite financial constraint as a limiting factor,
most borrow from their saving groups, family, and friends with 4% having access to any sort of financial services
with women being worse off (Fin Access.2015).
This market is the one Tivwane is targeting in its effort to it’s improve agri-business loan portfolio especially for
horticulture farmers to promote irrigated horticulture production. Currently only 20% of the smallholder farmers
in Zambia engage in the irrigated production and sale of horticultural or ‘fresh’ produce. Working with other

• Respectful communication and cooperation between all employees.
• Teamwork and employee participation, permitting the representation of all groups and employee perspectives.
• Work/life balance through flexible work schedules to accommodate employees’ varying needs.
• Employer and employee contributions to the communities we serve to promote a greater understanding and respect for the diversity.
• All employees of Tivwane Money have a responsibility to treat others with dignity and respect at all times. All employees are expected to exhibit conduct that reflects inclusion during work, at work functions on or off the work site, and at all other company-sponsored and participative events. All employees are also required to attend and complete annual diversity awareness training to enhance their knowledge to fulfill this responsibility.
• Any employee found to have exhibited any inappropriate conduct or behavior against others may be subject to disciplinary action.
• Employees who believe they have been subjected to any kind of discrimination that conflicts with the company’s diversity policy and initiatives should seek assistance from a supervisor or an HR representative.

Tivwane's business model involves working with smallholder farmers, either individually or in groups to finance their agricultural needs, rural entrepreneurs, and individual households. The company's main revenue streams are interest charged on the loans. Their current rates for all loans except emergency loans are 4.5% per month and they run for a maximum of 12 months. Emergency loan is at 7.5% per month and runs for 5 months. We charge a one-off loan processing fee (10% of the principal amount), and subscription charges (10%) for the use of the GTiPay-enabled digital payment platform. Loan interest and processing fees make up approximately 50% of revenues while subscription charges account for the other 50%. Tivwane looks to create more opportunities in rural communities and as such seeks to expand its outreach and customer base, especially for solar-powered pump asset loans. Tivwane looks to initially engage with 1500 farmers, and 100 rural SMEs over the next 5 years. This will enable Tivwane to annually finance 1,000 farmers, 100 Rural Agri-SMEs, and 500 solar-powered pumps for farmers.

To date we have been able to supply about 23 solar and treadle irrigation pumps to farmers, there is growing interest from farmers mainly for solar pumps and inputs. We have been able to process applications worth USD 120,000. The most limiting factor has been working capital to fund direct purchase of pieces of equipment the farmers need. We see a growing number of enquiries especially from peri-urban farmers doing horticulture to acquire the solar kits and inputs. 

we fund our work profits we make from current revuenes.

• • • Agri-Inputs loans – Loaned directly to individual farmers by facilitating the acquisition of planting inputs, especially Agri-input through Agro-dealers and suppliers. This attracts a monthly interest rate of min 3.75% to 4.5%
    • Agri SME Business loan – Loaned to Agro dealers and other rural-based Agri-based SMEs. Attracts monthly interest of 3.75% to 4.5%.
    • Asset-based Village Saving Group linked loan – Finance acquisitions of solar pumps by groups. Attracts monthly interest of 3.75% to 4.5%.
    • Emergency loan – to individuals for those in need of immediate loans. Has a high-yielding interest at 5.5% per month. 
    • We support throuhg getting loans as from private investoers.

Tivwane money solutions are one of the fastest growing MFIs in Zambia and amongst the few that deal in agriculture lending directly to smallholder farmers. Since its founding in 2018, Tivwane has achieved steady revenue growth annually from a turnover of ZMW 498,759 ($41,533.8) in 2018 to ZMW 1,315,258 ($ 94,199) in 2019, ZMW 3,266,189 ($ 154,320) in 2020 and ZMW 4,089,544 ($ 245,555) in 2021. Agriculture lending has been a key market for Tivwane over the years, especially asset and inputs financing. To date, the company has been able to disburse USD 116,378 worth of loans. Tivwane shareholders have been able to raise over USD 350,000.00 into business either as private equity or debt. This has mainly funded the company’s expansion strategy. As of 2020, Tivwane had supported over 600 customers (women are approximately 500) with access to financing for their various enterprises. Most are small-scale farmers (48%) and vulnerable households near or below the poverty line. About 60% of approved loans were agricultural loans for asset acquisition for movable solar pumps (48%). Tivwane has to date contributed to the acquisition of 23 solar – pumps, irrigation equipment and inputs (chemicals and fertilizer). The company has been able to forge a partnership with development partners such as SNV to offer training on entrepreneurship, crop store, market facilitation and diversified financial services (savings, credit, remittances, and insurance) to customers.