The Citi Foundation will work with the Small Enterprise Education and Promotion Network (SEEP) to create the 3-year USD 11.2 million Citi Network Strengthening Program. The program will include 12 major microfinance trade associations and their members.
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WHO’S WHO IN MICROFINANCE: The Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA)
Founded by microfinance pioneer Dr. John Hatch in 1985, The Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA) has been active in the global microfinance industry since its first microcredit program in El Salvador for low-income women in 1986. Operating in 21 countries with 2006 total assets of USD 252 million and a stated commitment to serving the poorest of the poor, FINCA relies on its grounding in Hatch’s Village Banking methodology, which dictates that local customers are the most knowledgeable regarding the management of their own assets. The model calls for cooperatives of 30 to 60 people to form around their mutual interest in pooling funds for inter-member loans and other financial services. Cooperatives gain access to additional capital by borrowing from financial institutions as a group, and then on-lending the funds to individuals, collateral-free.
PAPER WRAP-UP: Foreign Capital Investment in Microfinance: Balancing Social and Financial Returns by Xavier Reille and Sarah Forster
A Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) publication, this 24-page study discusses the boom of private investments in microfinance. Along with an overview of current players, the authors highlight the latest trends and issues in debt and equity financing. The full-version of the paper is available here.
PAPER WRAP-UP: Capital Markets: A Long-Term Solution to Financial Freedom, Gil Crawford and Lauren Clark
Co-authored by Gil Crawford, CEO of MicroVest, a Washington, DC-based private microfinance investment firm, and Lauren Clark, the Communications Manager for MicroVest, released July 2007 as Volume 10-Number 1 of Microenterprise Development Review, a publication of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), 11 pages, available at http://www.microvestfund.com/docs/microenter_dev_%207-16-07.pdf
MICROCAPITAL STORY: A Brief Survey on the Impact of Microfinance on Women Part 3 of a 3-Part Series: Focusing on Women Clients for Financial Sustainability
The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) reports that women’s access to microfinance improves overall economic activity in poorer regions, causing economic growth, since women make up 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people living below the poverty line. Access to savings and credit are believed to increase investment and productivity, access to markets and overall income.
MICROCAPITAL STORY: A Brief Survey on the Impact of Microfinance on Women Part 2 of a 3-Part Series: Evidence of Women’s Empowerment
Though there is less quantifiable evidence to justify the effect of microfinance on woman’s human rights, it is widely accepted that giving women access to savings and credit will increase women’s social and political empowerment, and even change traditional gender relationships. These assumptions continue to be evaluated as recent microfinance studies are focusing more and more on women’s empowerment.
NEWS WIRE: United States: The New Yorker Points Out “What Microloans Miss”
Source: The New Yorker.
WHO’S WHO IN MICROFINANCE: Ashoka
In the third century B.C., a military leader known as Ashoka the Great traversed the Indian subcontinent with his armies, determined to unify the region. Subsequently horrified at the bloodshed that was involved, Ashoka renounced violence, embraced tolerance, and embarked on a campaign to spread development and social welfare throughout his empire. More than two millennia later, a U.S.-based non-profit organization emerged, bearing his name, to face the modern challenge of raising similar visionaries with sufficient means to achieve their visions.
Ashoka has since grown to become an association of 1,800 “social entrepreneurs” across 60 countries. Founded in 1980, it grants three-year stipends to individuals with ideas for innovative and sustainable ventures that have the potential to effect social change. These individuals become life-long Ashoka Fellows. Through the course of their projects, Fellows are periodically surveyed on the impact of their activities. They are also plugged into a global network of Fellows, collaborating with one other and contributing to an infrastructure of access to capital, academia, and business partnerships. In the end, Ashoka’s goal is the proliferation of a “citizen sector,” a segment of society that is distinct from the governmental and corporate sectors and is motivated to mount social challenges.
WHO’S WHO IN MICROFINANCE: Aloysius P. Fernandez
Aloysius P. Fernandez is the Executive Director, as well as board member, of Bangalore-based Mysore Resettlement and Development Agency (MYRADA), a non-governmental organization (NGO) in India which provides training programs for rural development in the Indian states of Karnataka, Andhrapradesh, and Tamil Nadu as well as staff support to 6 other states and promotion of the Self-help Affinity Strategy in Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. MYRADA also publishes on various topics such as watershed development—projects which pursue better management of natural water resources—and NGO-government collaboration.
MICROFINANCE EVENT: The FT and IFC 2008 Sustainable Banking Awards for Microfinance Institutions and Investors Extended Entry Deadline to March 10
The 2008 Financial Times Sustainable Banking Awards has extended their submission deadline to March 10. The awards will be presented in London on June 3, 2008 following the 2008 FT/IFC Sustainable Banking Conference.
MICROCAPITAL STORY: Unitus Inc., a U.S. Nonprofit, Doubles Reach of Its Global Microfinance Partner Network in 2007
Unitus Inc., an American nonprofit committed to poverty relief through microfinance facilitation, has announced that the number of clients reached by its network of microfinance partners surpassed 3 million for the first time.
MICROFINANCE EVENT: Microfinance Pioneer Muhammad Yunus to Deliver Keynote Address at PODER Magazine’s Philanthropy Forum Devoted to the Americas in Miami, Florida
PODER PHILANTHROPY FORUM
MARCH 11-12, 2008, GUSMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, MIAMI, FLORIDA
PODER Magazine, a monthly publication written for business and political elite focusing on the growing influence of Latin America and the US Hispanic community, announced on Tuesday that it will be hosting, along with its partners, a Philanthropy Forum designed to encourage increased collaboration by gathering global practitioners and scholars as well as to foster innovation in private and corporate philanthropy in the region. According to the PR Newswire release, co-sponsoring partners include the City of Miami, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Foreign Policy magazine, Georgetown University, Impremedia, the Inter-American Development Bank, Miami Dade College, the Miami Herald Publishing Company, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (Knight Foundation), Synergos.org, and Univision.
MICROCAPITAL STORY: Old Mutual and South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Launch USD 12.9M Microfinance Initiative, Isivande Women’s Fund (IWF)
The Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa (previously reported) has teamed with Old Mutual Group’s Masisizane Fund to launch the Isivande Women’s Fund (IWF), financing women-run enterprises in the country. The new fund is the result of a 2006 study conducted by the DTI’s Gender and Women Empowerment Unit, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and FinMark. The study found that although women are more responsible managers of credit than men (p 5), they only receive 30 percent of loans, with black women receiving the least funding. Yet the data indicate that it is this particular group that is becoming increasingly important to the South African economy: approximately one million black women are self-employed, running mostly informal businesses (often referred to as “hawking”). This latest project targets this group with the goal of legitimizing informal businesses through finance.
MICROCAPITAL STORY: Green Microfinance of USA and MicroEnergy International of Germany Launch Program to Promote Clean Energy Through Microcredit
Green Microfinance (GMf) of Pennsylvania and MicroEnergy International (ME) of Germany recently announced the creation of Energizing India, a program that aims to promote clean energy products throughout India. The first phase of the project will focus on four provinces in southern India and will be implemented through a partnership with the microfinance institution (MFI) Evangelical Social Action Forum (ESAF).
MICROFINANCE EVENT: ACCION Joins With Standard Chartered Bank to Host Cracking the Capital Markets: South Asia
CRACKING THE CAPITAL MARKETS: SOUTH ASIA
APRIL 29-30, 2008, DELHI, INDIA
Cohosted by ACCION International and Standard Chartered Bank, this microfinance investment conference will bring together a wide range of finance professionals – institutional and private investors, leading microfinance institutions in Asia, international and regional banks, emerging markets specialists and rating agencies – to discuss the successes, challenges and trends of microfinance investment in South Asia.
MICROFINANCE EVENT: FT and IFC Launch 2008 Sustainable Banking Awards for Microfinance Institutions and Investors
The 2008 Financial Times Sustainable Banking Awards will be held in London on June 3, 2008. Started in 2006, in partnership with the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), the FT Sustainable Banking Awards recognizes banks that have shown leadership and innovation in integrating social, environmental and corporate governance objectives into their operations.
MICROCAPITAL STORY: 3RD Annual Srijan Microfinance Competition
The Srijan Microfinance Business Plan Competition will host its third annual entrepreneurial challenge. The name Srijan means “creation” in English and the competition aims at developing innovative solutions to the resource and infrastructure problems that currently limit MFI’s. In addition, the event hopes to capitalize on the entrepreneurial spirit of participants to further the efficiency of sustainable development methodologies and act as a forum for business, finance, and investor opportunities.
WHO’S WHO IN MICROFINANCE: Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan
Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan, a prominent figure who helped lay the basic foundations of the microcredit movement, is mostly known for his work on the Comilla Model of rural development in the 1960s and the Orangi Pilot Project in the 1980s. The Comilla Model was originally developed at the Bangladesh (formerly Pakistan) Academy of Rural Development, and focused on the integration of public and private resources in creating a central institutional base and developing around it various development programs. The Orangi Pilot Project was initiated as a grassroots development project that emphasized self-help as the primary means of developing the “katchi abadis” (informal sector).