USAID has announced that Crimson Capital’s Ramiro Ortega is the winner of its “Innovation in Financing Value Chains” competition. The competition drew entries from around the globe on innovative approaches to providing access to finance along the value chain and to increasing micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) sales and income.

Ortega presented Crimson’s ongoing work on the USAID/Bolivia Rural Competitiveness Activity (ARCo) project, which Crimson implements in cooperation with Chemonics International. Through the Financial Services Unit of the ARCo project, Crimson has supported the financial institution FIE to open 5 branches offering full banking services in the rural, coca growing regions of Yungas and Chapare. Crimson advisors are facilitating the introduction of Purchase Order Financing (POF), which provides MSMEs with the working capital they need to fill orders and grow, without the prohibitive collateral requirements often required by banks. The results are truly outstanding. In just over two years, FIE has made over $15 million for loans to rural MSMEs and cooperatives; $7.2 million in new sales have been supported by Purchase Order Finance Loans; 2,300 families have directly benefited through improved access to financial services; and 1,700 jobs have been created. All of this has been achieved with a total project investment of only $200,000.


Ortega received the award and presented a paper on his work in the Financial Services Unit of the ARCo project to donors, academics and practitioners in Washington DC in February 2009. Crimson congratulates Ortega and others who have worked on this project.