Currently, the world is impaired by COVID19. And like other countries all over the world, Rwanda is trying to adapt its economy and life to the new situation of living with the outbreak.

The Rwandan Institute for Cooperatives, Entrepreneurship and Microfinance (RICEM), as a training institute, has been very much affected by the COVID measures imposed by the government. On the one hand, the contact barriers help the society to stop or contain the spread of the pandemic, but on the other hand, the coordination and conduction of trainings is the daily business of RICEM, and an important source of income.

When COVID19 reached Rwanda in March 2020, RICEM had already started its delivery of trainings for the Microfinance Sector in collaboration with the Association of Microfinance Institutions in Rwanda (AMIR) and had planned to organize a significant number of those trainings formats during the year 2020. Same applied for the whole Cooperative Sector, for which RICEM is in collaboration with the National Cooperative Confederation in Rwanda (NCCR).

During the first ‘COVID-wave’, physical meetings have been directly stopped to prevent people from infection. Starting from that situation, RICEM in close collaboration with Sparkassenstiftung speeded up the development of an e-learning platform, which was planned even before the pandemic and become obviously more important than before.

As a first success story, RICEM is now training more than 100 participants on Delinquency Management through the new e-learning platform. The choice of this topic was led by the impact of COVID19 on the microfinance sector. COVID19 has already inflicted several challenges to MFIs in Rwanda and rising of portfolio at risk is among the most important.

The new e-learning platform is an impactful tool which will allow RICEM to reach the participants wherever they are. Different trainings on different topics can be provided at the same time and on an affordable level for the beneficiaries.

At the same time, the e-learning platform is an integral part of RICEMs recently launched website, which contains for the visitors almost every information about RICEMs team, its facilities, services and products. The website itself is also intended to serve as an access point to the e-learning platform soon. Visit RICEM Website here:   www.RICEM.rw