By A Correspondent, Kigali
NMB Bank has forged a strategic partnership with health technology company Dawa Mkononi to expand access to working capital for eligible pharmacies, pharmaceutical distributors and other businesses operating across the medicine supply chain.
The synergistic collaboration will use digital finance to address liquidity constraints that can limit businesses’ ability to purchase, stock and distribute medicines, potentially affecting the efficiency and reliability of the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Kigali, the lender will provide financing through Dawa Mkononi’s digital platform, creating a technology-enabled channel through which qualifying pharmaceutical businesses can access working capital to support their operations.
The initiative brings together banking and health technology to address a financing challenge within a critical part of the healthcare economy. For pharmaceutical businesses, timely access to capital can be important for maintaining inventory, meeting customer demand and ensuring continuity of supplies.
NMB Bank Director of Strategy and Growth, Francis Mittah, said the partnership reflects the opportunity for banks and technology companies to develop financial solutions that are more closely aligned with the needs of businesses.
The collaboration, he said, demonstrates how digital platforms can help create financing systems capable of responding to specific business requirements.
For Dawa Mkononi, the financing component is particularly important because liquidity remains a key requirement for businesses involved in pharmaceutical distribution.
Dawa Mkononi Chief Executive Officer Joseph Paul said access to capital is critical to building a stronger and more efficient medicine distribution chain, particularly for businesses that need adequate liquidity to maintain medicine availability.
The two organisations said in a presser that the partnership positions digital finance not simply as a banking channel, but as a tool for supporting a specialised business value chain.
By combining NMB’s financing capacity with Dawa Mkononi’s digital health platform, the partners aim to make financing more accessible to eligible businesses while strengthening the commercial infrastructure supporting medicine distribution.
The initiative also points to a broader opportunity for financial institutions and technology companies to develop sector-specific financing models as digital platforms become increasingly integrated into business operations. For the pharmaceutical sector, the immediate focus will be on improving access to working capital. Its wider significance lies in linking finance, technology and healthcare supply chains in a way that could support more efficient movement of medicines and other medical supplies from suppliers to businesses and, ultimately, consumers.
