Despite promising developments a concern remains that many very poor households and micro enterprises in more remote rural areas will remain beyond the reach of banks and large MFIs for many years. Decentralised financial systems offer the prospect of capitalising on the lower transaction costs which small, community based organisations offer. Nevertheless many challenges remain. Experience shows that Community Based Financial Organisations (CBFOs) often suffer from severe governance and capacity problems leading to high rates of organisational failure and losses to their clients. Low cost, appropriate capacity building, support and supervision offer the potential to mitigate these problems.

Below is a summary of FSD Kenya's ongoing and proposed projects under this theme: