The World Bank, through its private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, has launched an assessment of Kenya’s Hustler Fund, opening a potentially significant new examination of President William Ruto’s flagship credit programme nearly four years after it was introduced as a solution to financial exclusion and limited access to affordable credit.
The assessment will examine both the quantitative and qualitative impact of the programme, including how beneficiaries have used the loans, their repayment behaviour and the extent to which the fund’s savings component has improved financial resilience among low-income Kenyans.
The findings are expected by the end of 2026 and could provide the most comprehensive independent evaluation yet of whether the Hustler Fund has delivered the economic transformation promised by the government when the programme was launched.
World Bank begins deeper examination of Hustler Fund ¶
Cooperatives Principal Secretary Susan Mang’eni disclosed the assessment during an interview with NTV on Tuesday, September 1, saying the World Bank, with support from IFC, had already commenced both a quantitative assessment and an impact assessment of the fund.
The announcement comes at a critical stage for a programme that has been at the centre of the government's economic empowerment agenda, particularly its efforts to expand access to affordable credit for individuals and small businesses that have traditionally struggled to obtain financing from commercial banks and other formal lenders.
Rather than simply measuring the number of loans issued, the assessment is expected to examine what beneficiaries actually did with the money and whether access to the fund produced measurable improvements in income, business activity, savings and financial inclusion.
That distinction could prove important because the success of a credit programme cannot be determined solely by the number of borrowers reached or the amount of money disbursed.
The more important question is whether the borrowing has generated productive economic activity or merely provided temporary financial relief to households facing persistent income pressures.
Government's impressive reach faces independent scrutiny ¶
The government says the Hustler Fund has reached approximately 28 million Kenyans since its establishment, with close to 10 million borrowers now using the facility regularly.
The figures demonstrate the extraordinary reach of a digital lending programme designed to place small amounts of credit within the immediate reach of millions of Kenyans through mobile technology.
However, the programme's size also makes the World Bank's assessment particularly important, because millions of individual borrowing decisions create a complex picture that headline figures alone cannot capture.
A borrower who takes a small loan to purchase stock for a retail business, for example, represents a very different economic outcome from another borrower who takes the same amount to pay rent, purchase food or settle an existing debt.
The assessment therefore has the potential to expose the difference between access to credit and genuine financial empowerment, particularly if researchers can establish how frequently borrowers used the money for productive purposes and whether the loans contributed to sustainable improvements in their livelihoods.
Hustler Fund has created a new financial identity ¶
Beyond the money disbursed, one of the programme's most significant developments has been the volume of financial data generated through millions of borrowing and repayment transactions.
Mang’eni said the government has used this information to establish a behavioural credit rating system that categorises borrowers from A1 to C3 according to their borrowing and repayment behaviour, with A representing the strongest category.
The system is intended to give borrowers a financial identity that can potentially help them graduate into larger and more formal sources of credit.
For millions of Kenyans who have historically operated outside conventional financial systems, the ability to demonstrate a positive repayment history could eventually become an important gateway to bank loans, business financing and other financial services.
However, the same system raises questions about how borrower behaviour will affect access to credit in the future, particularly for individuals who repeatedly borrow and struggle to repay.
The World Bank's assessment could therefore provide valuable insight into whether the Hustler Fund is helping borrowers build stronger financial profiles or creating another cycle of small scale borrowing among households that remain financially vulnerable.
The Credit Reference Bureau Question ¶
The government's case for the Hustler Fund has also been closely tied to financial inclusion and the longstanding problem of negative Credit Reference Bureau listings.
Mang’eni said millions of Kenyans had previously been negatively listed with CRBs but argued that the situation has changed, with more people now developing positive credit records through their participation in formal financial services.
That development, if supported by independent evidence, would represent an important achievement because a positive credit history can significantly improve an individual's ability to obtain financing from formal institutions.
The critical issue, however, is whether improved credit records are translating into productive borrowing and higher household incomes rather than simply making it easier for financially constrained Kenyans to access additional debt.
This is where the World Bank's impact assessment could become particularly revealing because it has the opportunity to examine the relationship between borrowing behaviour, repayment performance and actual economic outcomes among beneficiaries.
Ksh7 billion savings offer another measure of success ¶
The assessment will also examine the savings component of the Hustler Fund, which the government says has accumulated more than Ksh7 billion in short and long term savings over nearly three years.
The savings figure is significant because one of the programme's stated objectives was to encourage a culture of saving among Kenyans who have historically had limited access to formal financial products.
Savings can provide households with a financial buffer during emergencies, reduce dependence on expensive borrowing and create capital that can eventually be invested in businesses or other productive activities.
But the headline figure alone does not reveal how widely those savings are distributed among beneficiaries, whether individuals are consistently saving or whether the accumulated funds are sufficient to materially improve household financial security.
The World Bank assessment could provide a more detailed picture by examining savings behaviour alongside borrowing patterns and household outcomes.
World Bank support has entered a new phase ¶
The latest assessment is particularly noteworthy because it comes roughly three years after the World Bank publicly expressed support for the Hustler Fund.
In 2023, World Bank representatives held consultations with President William Ruto on ways of supporting the programme and other government-backed lending initiatives aimed at empowering vulnerable Kenyans.
World Bank Regional Vice President for Eastern Africa Victoria Kwakwa said at the time that the institution strongly associated itself with programmes designed to empower poor and vulnerable populations and indicated that the bank would explore technical and financial support for such initiatives.
The institution is now moving beyond broad support and into measurement of actual outcomes, making the forthcoming report potentially important not only for the Hustler Fund but also for Kenya's wider approach to government backed lending.
For the Ruto administration, the findings could strengthen one of two very different narratives.
If the assessment establishes that the fund has helped businesses expand, increased savings, improved credit histories and brought previously excluded Kenyans into the formal financial system, it would provide independent evidence supporting the government's argument that the programme is delivering meaningful economic empowerment.
If, however, the assessment finds that significant borrowing has been directed towards consumption, debt repayment or short term household survival without corresponding improvements in incomes and business performance, questions over the long term sustainability and effectiveness of the programme are likely to intensify.
The government has already supplied the headline numbers, including millions of borrowers, billions of shillings disbursed and more than Ksh7 billion in savings.
What remains to be established is whether those numbers represent genuine economic transformation.
That is ultimately the question the World Bank and IFC assessment will have to answer, and its findings could determine whether the Hustler Fund is remembered as a transformative financial inclusion programme or as a massive experiment in digital lending whose reach proved easier to demonstrate than its lasting impact.
