Kenya is in talks with the World Bank and European Union to ramp up its “Hustler Fund” project that is already providing cheap credit to more than 20 million of the country’s poor, Bloomberg News reported. A top government official said the World Bank was discussing backing that could amount to as much as 20 billion shillings ($139 million), including via an existing program to support small enterprises. Combined with investments from the Treasury, this could leverage lending of 200 billion shillings over the next five years. Simon Chelugui, cabinet secretary for Co-operatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, said Treasury plans to invest 10 billion shillings by June 2024. That will top up its initial funding of 12 billion shillings. Talks with the EU and the US Agency for International Development, another potential backer, are still at an initial stage, he said in an interview on Monday in the capital Nairobi.
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