Understanding the clients we serve and their needs is what has made us. CUMO started in the year 2000 as a livelihood project in United Purpose (UP), then known as Concern Universal, working with 100 farmers. United Purpose was, at the time, helping the farmers to increase output from the limited land they had.
CUMO operates exclusively in rural areas, working beyond trading centres to reach remotest rural parts of Malawi where most formal financial service providers fail to reach. Our client base consists of a significant proportion of the very poor, vulnerable and active population who live below the poverty line and currently make up 40% of the country’s population of around 20 million.
The majority of our clients are within the poorest to upper poor category, surviving on a land holding of less that 2 Acres, with an education level lower than standard 5. At least 57% of them have little or no knowledge of business and do not access profitable markets. Most of our clients are, at the time of joining, those who have been struggling to feed their households and send their children to school.
Malawi’s financial inclusion rates are amongst the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa and other low income countries in the world. Only 18% of the adult population in Malawi have a formal bank account (but only 14% for women); only 7% able to access formal savings; and, only 6% able to borrow from formal institutions. (Source: World Bank Findex 2014).