The Rural Development Fund Ghana, in collaboration with the National Banking College and with support from the Association of Rural Banks (ARB) and ARB Apex Bank, has unveilled a training programme dubbed ‘RDF Executive Management Essentials for Rural Banking’ (REMERB) to meet the growing training needs of Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) in Ghana.
At the training’s launch, which took place at the National Banking College – bringing together over 50 key stakeholders in the Rural and Community Banking sector, the principal collaborators engaged participants on the details of REMERB and allowed for discourse on the inclusion of other elements which could further strengthen the programme.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of RDF Ghana, Mr. Yaw Oppong, stated that RDF Ghana finds it rewarding to spearhead support to institutions which are central to execution of the mandate to promote inclusive rural development in Ghana.
This is done by primarily providing finance to the agricultural and renewable energy value chains, and adding to this intervention with technical assistance.
According to him, the partnership for such a programme emerged from consistent and intentional engagements with RDF’s partner financial institutions. Mr. Oppong said appraisals of these PFIs were combined and their challenges teased out for the formulation of a remedial programme – which has now come to be known as RDF Executive Management Essentials for Rural Banking (REMERB).
“It is important to acknowledge that this has become possible because of our partnership with the National Banking College, which has been gracious in making their expertise and time available to help develop this programme,” he added.
The Principal of the National Banking College (NBC), Ms. Gloria Darline Quartey, said the college is privileged to be the principal implementer of this innovative programme by RDF Ghana.
“We decided to go on this journey with RDF Ghana; because the goal of RDF is to see a more robust and resilient rural banking system in Ghana subsumed in our mission as a college to provide professional training and deliver the capacity for sustained quality service of the banking and financial services industry through demand-driven training, applied research, consultancy and information dissemination,” she said.
She indicated she is very hopeful that the programme will yield the desired results by contributing to building competencies of Rural and Community Banks at the forefront of delivering banking services to areas which need them the most.
Board member of RDF Ghana, Florence Ohene Kyei, unveilled an art-piece to mark the programme’s opening. The event brought together CEOs of RCBs – the direct beneficiaries of REMERB – from various regions across the country, who generally expressed that the programme is a timely and useful intervention to help them overcome obstacles besetting the sector.
RDF Ghana LBG (RDF) is a development finance institution established to provide access to finance and technical assistance services to agriculture, agribusiness and renewable energy.
RDF provides wholesale funds to a wide range of financial intermediaries for lending to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Incorporated as a company limited by guarantee, RDF ploughs back its earnings to continuously support access to finance for the agriculture and renewable energy sectors. The guarantors of RDF are the government of Ghana represented by the Ministry of Finance and the government of Denmark represented by the Danish Investment Fund for Developing Countries.
