Every week, RuralReporters.com collate reports on development issues in rural Africa and its environs.

This report includes some of our top picks from recent must-read research, interviews, blogs, and in-depth articles, carefully selected to help you keep up with global issues.

Here are some of the updates you may have missed from the previous week:

Rural banks shun credit reports, conduct searches on only first-time borrowers

It has emerged that some financial institutions, especially rural banks, conduct credit searches only on their commercial customers or first-time borrowers. The practice is in violation of Section 26 of the Credit Reporting Act, 2007 (ACT 726), which mandates all financial institutions to obtain credit reports on all prospective borrowers before granting or refusing a credit facility application.

According to the Credit Referencing Activity Annual Report, 2017, authored by the Financial Stability Department of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), the body presented the performance, key developments and trends in credit referencing system in the country said trend indicated a low usage of credit reports.

Rural Areas and Small Cities Hold the Key to Economic Growth

Rural areas are poised to be a significant driver for economic growth in developing countries. According to the State of Food and Agriculture report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the key to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are transforming rural communities and promoting agriculture.

“Since the 1990s, rural transformations in many countries have led to an increase of more than 750 million in the number of rural people living above the poverty line,” says FAO. “To achieve the same results in the countries that have been left behind, the report outlines a strategy that would leverage the enormous untapped potential of food systems to drive agro-industrial development, boost small-scale farmers’ productivity and incomes, and create off-farm employment in expanding segments of food supply and value chains.”

Eastern Cape plans to build rural economy

The Eastern Cape government has put plans in place to advance the economic potential of the province’s underdeveloped rural regions, which will include a special economic zone (SEZ) in Mthatha.

The province’s Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism has also introduced a project called the Small Towns Revitalisation Programme, which aims to target the most underdeveloped parts of the province in an effort to make them industrial hubs. Ncedo Lisani, the department’s communications manager, said: “The Eastern Cape is a rural province and one of South Africa’s poorest. There is a huge backlog of bulk infrastructure, and limited or no access to villages or tourism products due to the bad state of the roads. There is also limited broadband infrastructure. With this in mind, the department has developed an integrated development plan for the region, including the Wild Coast, which ensures accelerated project development through the mobilisation of funding and technical support.”

Reading Spots holds reading conferences in rural communities

Reading Spots Ghana, a UK registered charity organization aimed at creating community-led sustainable libraries in rural Ghana through global citizenship has held its first ever reading conference in Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Region.

The project brought together 63 delegates from 16 communities stretching across seven regions of the country. Delegates were drawn from Abofour, Akumadan, Tamale, Elmina, Asemkow, Tema, Donkokrom, Tease, Bosomdwe, Agona Swedru, Bolgatanga and Ekumfi.