Family Bank has inked a two-year deal with Aqua to facilitate increased lending to medium and small-scale water enterprises.
The loan product worth Sh350 million will support Maji Plus, a loan facility from Family Bank that provides flexible financial solutions to individuals, micro-businesses, SMEs and Water Service Providers.
Speaking during the signing ceremony, Family Bank CEO Rebecca Mbithi acknowledged that access to affordable credit in the water and sanitation economy remains a challenge.
“As a Bank, we are dedicated to help scale up the financial and operational performance of water service providers and financing initiatives focused on delivering improved water supply and sanitation services to low-income homes. Together with Aqua for All, we will be able to widen our financing pool of service providers and provide access to affordable credit for Community-Based Water Service Providers that are providing piped and point services in the unserved or underserved populations,” she said.
Aqua for All’s Managing Director Josien Sluijs said that they consider Kenya a promising market for water and sanitation investments.
“However, we need to accelerate progress towards achieving SDG 6. This requires supporting scalable solutions and facilitating access to capital by unlocking private investments. Our partnership with Family Bank is an important step towards providing sustainable access to safe water and proper sanitation nationwide. By supporting community-based service providers, we can contribute to making the water and sanitation sector in Kenya more sustainable and inclusive,” Sluijs said.
The facility is also meant to supply low-income communities with safe drinking water either through piping systems or water kiosks throughout Kenya.
Family Bank is targeting Community-Based Water Service Providers in order to provide improved access to clean, safe water to over 280,000 people.
The bank will also offer customers training materials on how to provide financing for climate-resilient projects in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.
The signing ceremony was also attended by Pim van der Male, First Secretary, Food Security and Water, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands who lauded the partnership. In attendance were representatives from water.org, World Bank, African Guarantee Fund, Davis and Shirtliff among other stakeholders and partners in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sector (WASH) sector.
