PRESS RELEASE: Paths To Learning - Successful Innovations In Rural Microfinance - Africa Asia Latin America and the Caribbean

Source: Ford Foundation, Sheila Burns

Article available here.

Between October 29 and November 12, 2007 twenty men and women working in the design and implementation of development services in benefit of poor rural populations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, will participate in the first of three Paths to Learning. An equal number of participants from each region will visit successful innovators in Latin America, learning in the field the work focus, strategies, and management models of those public institutions, intermediary financial institutions, and grass-roots organizations which have provided poor rural families with access to new services and financial products.

The program is a joint initiative of the Regional Corporation PROCASUR and the Ford Foundation. It is part of a south-south co-operation strategy involving Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, regions where innovations in providing financial services to poor rural populations possess a high potential for adaptation and replication, permitting millions of rural clients to diversify their opportunities and improve their income and asset levels.

The Paths to Learning are an innovative training system, providing those who work in development services with a unique opportunity to enhance their analytical and management skills through the study of successful cases and direct dialogue with operators. The Paths strive to identify, systematize, disseminate, and encourage the application of those experiences which have contributed to improving the quality and coverage of rural financial services in the three regions and to develop the capacities of local actors to implement innovations.

The program will directly benefit up to 60 organizations and institutions which provide rural financial services in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Selection of the beneficiaries will be the responsibility of an Advisory Board and will be conducted through a public, competitive mechanism.

Application for participation is open to those with at least three years of direct experience in the design and implementation of rural financial services in an institution which provides financial services to poor rural populations in one of the three regions. They must have spoken and written fluency in Spanish or English or French, provide a letter of sponsorship from their employer indicating the time available to them to carry out tasks before, during, and after the Path, and provide co-financing for return travel costs incurred between the place of origin and the Path’s departure point.

Each participant will construct an Innovation Plan which will permit the identification of possible strategies for adoption or adaptation of the innovations learned, resulting in improvements in the coverage and diversification of financial services. Following the Path, participants will have access to an e-learning platform, facilitating the exchange of information among participants and between participants and the host cases visited, and through which they will receive specialized on-line technical assistance.

Contents and themes of the Paths to Learning include analysis of and direct access to initiatives, case studies, and experiences of the most important issues associated with the design and implementation of rural financial services. These include: advances in the introduction of reforms in regulations, mechanisms of supervision, and the laws governing government-run development banks, member-controlled institutions, and second-tier institutions; sustainable coverage of very poor, remote populations with institutions, products, services and appropriate technology, and through informal financing by means of buyers and sellers of materials through supply chains; innovations in products for savings to facilitate the creation of income and assets; methods of reducing risk and credit guarantee schemes to improve coverage and institutional protection; money transfer services; technological advances successful in reducing transaction costs and improving information.

An Advisory Board comprised of representatives from the Ford Foundation and the Regional Corporation PROCASUR, as well as thematic specialists from relevant institutions with expertise in the area of rural finance, will provide technical and operational recommendations to ensure the successful execution of the program and to heighten its impact.

Following the inaugural Path to Learning in Latin America, a second Path is programmed in Asia in April, 2008 and a third Path in Africa, in October, 2008.

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For more information please visit: www.procasur.org

Questions may be directed to:

procasur@procasur.org

jmoreno@procasur.org

bbudinich@procasur.org