> Eradicating Poverty, Building New Lives > Fighting Poverty with Strong MFIs > Building the Industry
Encouraging Collective Learning Among MFIs This year, we organized a number of events that brought MFI leaders together, in some instances for the first time ever, to learn from their peers and from experts in the field. Grameen Foundation, in conjunction with PlaNet Finance, invited China’s top microfinance institutions microfinance institutions (MFIs) to participate in China’s first Investment Readiness training. More than eighteen of the country’s best MFIs convened in Shanghai and Beijing to participate in sessions on how to secure growth capital from international investors and financiers. The Investment Readiness workshop brought in national and international finance, microfinance, and legal experts to lead hands-on sessions. When the training concluded, the MFIs had the tools and knowledge they need to engage local and international institutions to finance their expansion to meet the larger unmet demand for microfinance among the poor in China. In September, more than 40 participants from 10 MFIs in five Latin American countries attended our Regional Partner Forum “Forito” from Mexico to exchange best practices and receive training from world-class experts on topics relevant to their growth and anti-poverty impact. Some of the topics discussed during the three-day event were: microfinance as a channel for delivering high-impact social services; increasing operational efficiency; human capital development; and using social performance results as an internal management tool and to demonstrate progress to socially responsible investors. In November, Grameen-Jameel Pan-Arab Microfinance, Ltd., along with BlueOrchard, hosted the Arab Microfinance Symposium in Dubai, an event that demonstrated to institutional and private investors in the Arab World the outstanding performance of leading MFIs and their potential as solid investments. Grameen-Jameel is a joint venture between Grameen Foundation and the Abdul Latif Jameel Group. It aims to increase the growth and impact of microfinance in the Arab World. The symposium attracted more than 150 delegates from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Morocco, Tunisia, and Pakistan—
Pro Mujer Bolivia, our partner in the Americas, is helping its clients’ children develop their own business skills with the Young Entrepreneurs program.
representing some of the leading MFIs and financial institutions in the region and beyond. In December 2008, Grameen-Jameel added its first microfinance partner in the West Bank—the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), the second largest MFI in Palestine. Grameen-Jameel has supported PARC since 2006, helping it to develop a business plan to reach 50,000 members providing scholarships to attend regional microfinance conferences and supporting their attendance at the 2008 Grameen Arab Dialogue in Bangladesh. That same month, 80 representatives from 28 African MFIs gathered in Ghana for the first-ever Grameen Foundation Africa Regional Forum. The forum, sponsored by The McGraw-Hill Companies, gave MFIs the chance to hear from development experts from around the globe– including Udaia Kumar, the founder of Society for Helping, Awakening Rural Poor through Education (SHARE) Microfin Limited, the second-largest MFI in India. The 15 workshops on microfinance and technology explored ways that MFIs could fund more loans, move their clients out of poverty faster, and operate more efficiently. MFIs also shared their experiences on how best to solve their common challenges in serving the Africa’s poor people.
26 www.grameenfoundation.org