In January, USAID Visit Tunisia fully completed its grant support to the microfinance institution Microcred to support Tunisian businesses with micro-lending and grant support. Since the launch of the micro-lending support program in October 2022, the USAID Visit Tunisia Activity, through Microcred, has supported 1073 Micro and Very Small Enterprises (MVSEs) in the tourism sector, exceeding the initial target of 800 MVSEs, with over TND 10,397,846 TND of commercial financing leveraged to date, exceeding the initial target of 7,000,000 TND.
As a result of the grant-loan package support, the supported MVSEs were able to sustain/create a total of 498 jobs (37.15% ofbs were for women and 59.44% of them were for youth), and a total increase in sales of 14%.
As a result to the loan and grant support provided by USAID and Microcred, the owner of this traditional handicraft shop in Siliana bought new sewing machines and was able to continue selling artisanal products in the local market and abroad in addition to onboarding one more employee to join the women-operated team. ©Microcred/USAID
Engaging youth and empowering women are high priorities in USAID Visit Tunisia’s mission across all its programming to accelerate the recovery and economic growth of impacted micro and very small businesses after the COVID pandemic. Of the 1073 MVSEs supported under this program in partnership with MFI Microcred:
- 31.87% are women (342)
- 68.13% are men (731)
- 24.04% are young (aged between 18 and 35 years) (258)
USAID-Microcred-supported quad rental project in Djerba. ©Microcred/USAID
Rewatch the stories of four successful partners from Beja, Kairouan, Siliana, and Djerba!
