Rashid Bajwa

Dr. Rashid Bajwa is the Chief Executive officer of National Rural Support Program (NRSP). At NRSP oversees the largest rural development operations of Pakistan. NRSP's mandate is to alleviate poverty by harnessing people's potential and undertake development activities in Pakistan. It has a presence in 54 Districts in all the four Provinces including Azad Jammu and Kashmir through Regional Offices and Field Offices. His other areas of specialization include project management, fund management and development of implementation strategies and teams. He is also holding various honorary positions such as Chairman Pakistan Microfinance Network, Member State Bank of Pakistan’s committee of Rural Finance, Member of the General Body of the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, and Sindh Rural Support Program.

By Rashid Bajwa

Blog

Reaching Small Farmers Through Innovative Finance In Pakistan

In 2001, NRSP (National Rural Support Program) designed a research project to address the issues of access to finance and advisory services to small sugar cane farmers. The basic idea was to create an “out of box” microfinance model that threads together the small farmer, the MFI and the processor into a high impact value chain with high financial and social returns. The project “Sugarcane Production Enhancement Project” (the SPEP) focused on small poor farmers with a maximum land holding of around three acres, as well as share croppers and farmers who generally rent agriculture land from large land lords.