Asia & Caucasus
ECLOF has been working in Asia since 1959 when ECLOF Myanmar was opened. Today, ECLOF serves about 30,000 clients in Asia. 80% of them are women and 82% live in rural areas. The majority of loans are given to solidarity groups of like-minded entrepreneurs or farmers coming together to learn from each other, co-guarantee each other’s loan and grow together.
Around 60% of ECLOF’s loans in Asia finance agriculture, mostly smallholder farmers or cattle breeders. That is why many non-financial services ECLOF offers in Asia respond to the needs of an agricultural clientele: by providing hands-on training on organic agriculture in the Philippines, by offering farming loans in the post-conflict areas of Northern Sri Lanka, or by training women in rural India on dairy production.
ECLOF also has a growing outreach in the Caucasus region: financing micro and small enterprises in Georgia and predominantly rural, often agricultural clients in Armenia.