Growing your internal finance: a toolkit to guide forest and farm producer organisations

Approximately 1.6 billion smallholder and family farmers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities inhabit forest landscapes. Many of them struggle to access finance from banks and microfinance institutions, government support programmes or private-sector partners. To improve their access to markets and finance, individuals work together to establish forest and farm producer organisations (FFPOs). These FFPOs play a critical role in producing, aggregating and selling forest and farm products. The vast numbers of people and the extensive areas of land that belong to FFPOs collective membership make them key players in global income generation, food security, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

To address their members limited access to finance, many FFPOs set up their own savings and loans groups. Over time, the contributions from membership and service fees, shares, retained profits, savings, and interest on loans can grow these funds. Simple savings and loans groups can evolve into larger, formally registered financial cooperatives and credit unions. With more than 67,000 credit unions worldwide marshalling more than US$3.8 trillion in capital, the overlooked potential of self‑mobilised finance deserves more attention. This toolkit is designed to help FFPOs consider how to mobilise, manage and grow internal financial resources and develop financial services that better serve their members.