10 May.

0

Unaddressed and Unacceptable Sacrifices: The Role of Financial Services for Food Security and Nutrition

Author: Bobbi Gray - Grameen Foundation USA
Next up in our series of guest blogs on the topic of the European Microfinance Award 2023 – Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition – Bobbi Gray from Grameen Foundation considers the (intolerable) sacrifices that poor households make to meet their financial services obligations, and the responsibility of the sector to address this.
Read more
29 Sep.

0

Coming Forward: The Role of Mobile Money Agents in Driving Women’s Financial Inclusion

Author: Bobbi Gray - Piyush Singh
Around the world, women do between two to ten times more care work than men, with countries like Ghana and India on the extreme end. Time poverty and caretaking responsibilities are indicated as particular barriers that constrain women’s economic participation. Female entrepreneurs interviewed by Grameen Foundation in Northern Ghana note that household chores are “time consuming, making our business less productive” and the nature of household chores “makes it difficult to [take] up certain businesses,” limiting both when women can work, as well as the types of businesses in which women can participate. Sociocultural gender roles that expect women to address the caretaking and household workload increase economic inequality amongst men and women. These constraints to economic participation limit women’s financial inclusion as well, for the very same reasons.
Read more
01 Jul.

0

e-MFP launches 2019 Award publication, Adapting to a New Normal, synthesising factors for success in strengthening climate change resilience

Author: e-MFP
We’re delighted to announce the publication of "Adapting to a New Normal", the latest annual paper that presents the outcomes of the European Microfinance Award 2019 on ‘Strengthening Resilience to Climate Change’. It is part of an Award publication series, produced since 2008, that details the issues and challenges of that year’s Award topic, summarises the Award process, profiles the Award semi-finalists and their relevant initiatives, and extracts factors for success that distinguish these programmes. More than ever, the lessons from the 2019 Award on how to protect clients, staff and institutions from external crises are especially relevant as a Covid-threatened sector seeks to adapt today to not just one, but two ‘new normals’. "Adapting to a New Normal" was written by e-MFP’s Sam Mendelson with support from Camille Dassy, Gemma Cavaliere, Gabriela Erice and Daniel Rozas. It opens with an explanation of the threats of climate change, what this ‘accretion of threats’ shares with the current Covid-19 crisis across the sector and the world at large, what financial services providers can do to protect vulnerable populations (and themselves) from the impacts of climate change, and then presents the climate change resilience initiatives of the ten semi-finalists across three broad categories: Increasing Resilience to Unpredictable/High-Impact External Shocks; Helping Clients Adapt to a Changing Climate; and Strengthening Institutional Resilience.
Read more
28 Jan.

1

Urgent action on climate change must go beyond microfinance “business as usual”

Author: Johan Bastiaensen - Frédéric Huybrechs
Over the last decade, one of the key rising topics in microfinance has been the sector’s response to environmental challenges, and this will continue to take centre stage. In the recently released Financial Inclusion Compass 2019, ‘Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation’ is only second to Agri-finance in the New Areas of Focus Index, which asks respondents across the sector to look 5-10 years ahead. In recognition of these rising environmental concerns, the European Microfinance Award 2019 sought to highlight outstanding innovations in Strengthening Resilience to Climate Change. The last press release of European Microfinance Week, and the keynote address from the Award ceremony also called for urgent action on climate change. In this blogpost, we reflect on this timely call for action and question how transformative the financial inclusion sector is when it comes to responding to climate change. We do this on the basis of our past research on this topic and build on some of the messages put forward during the European Microfinance Award 2019 Ceremony.
Read more
17 Dec.

0

A Stirring Call to Action on Climate Change

Author: Sunita Narain - Centre for Science and Environment India
Climate change could not happen at a worse time in human history. It is clear that things are now spiraling out of control. Every year we are told is the hottest year, till the next year comes around. Then a new record is broken. It is getting worse. From forest fires, to increasing frequency and intensity of storms, to blistering cold waves and spiraling heat. We know something is wrong. Very wrong. But we are so distracted – from trade wars, to Brexit, to immigration, to economic crisis and skirmishes that are raging across our countries – that climate change is not a priority. We simply don’t seem to have the bandwidth to handle it. But we must.
Read more
13 Sep.

0

Ten editions of the European Microfinance Award: 2018 Winner - Advans Côte d’Ivoire (Advans CI)

Author: e-MFP
2019 marks ten editions of the European Microfinance Award and to celebrate, e-MFP has decided to reach out to the previous winners, for a ‘where are they now?’ blog series, published throughout 2019, to look at what they have been doing with their initiative since they won, and how the winning of the Award has helped, and what plans they have in store. In 2018, the theme of the Award was 'Financial Inclusion through Technology'. Advans Côte d’Ivoire, part of the Advans Group, is a non-bank financial institution in the Ivory Coast which won for its response to traceability and safety issues faced by cooperatives paying cocoa farmers, as well as low school enrolment due to lack of regular cashflow among farmers, by offering a digital savings and payment solution, with wallet-to-bank and bank-to-wallet transfer services that enable producers’ cooperatives to make digital payments to farmers for their crop revenue. We’re delighted to catch up with them in this interview.
Read more
02 Aug.

1

Ten editions of the European Microfinance Award: 2010 Winner - Harbu Microfinance Institution

Author: e-MFP
2019 marks ten editions of the European Microfinance Award and to celebrate, e-MFP has decided to reach out to the previous winners, for a ‘where are they now?’ blog series, published throughout 2019, to look at what they have been doing with their initiative since they won, and how the winning of the Award has helped, and what plans they have in store. In 2010, the theme of the Award was 'Value Chain Finance', focusing on stimulating and promoting inclusive financial schemes that contribute to the evolution of value chains in developing countries. A value chain is a vertical alliance between different independent enterprises, collaborating to achieve a more rewarding position in the market. Harbu of Ethiopia won for its initiative to finance the soy bean value chain as a response to market demand generated by a shortage of cow milk in Jimma city, in Oromia state. The initiative sought to strengthen horizontal linkages with farmer marketing organisations and vertical linkages with retailers and women's associations that are processing and producing soy milk. The initiative created market opportunities for producer-farmers and employment opportunities for urban women and youth. At the same time, it improved families’ nutrition, especially for children and women. Harbu provided financial services to most of the actors across the value chain, from the individual producers all the way to retailers.
Read more
25 Jun.

0

Ten editions of the European Microfinance Award: 2017 Winner - Cooperativa de Ahorro y Préstamo Tosepantomin

Author: e-MFP
2019 marks ten editions of the European Microfinance Award and to celebrate, e-MFP has decided to reach out to the previous winners, for a ‘where are they now?’ blog series, published throughout 2019, to look at what they have been doing with their initiative since they won, and how the winning of the Award has helped, and what plans they have in store. In 2017, the theme of the Award was 'Microfinance for Housing' which sought to highlight the role of microfinance in supporting access to better quality residential housing for low income, vulnerable and excluded groups, with no or limited access to housing finance in the mainstream sector. Cooperativa de Ahorro y Préstamo Tosepantomin won for its programme targeting rural communities living in marginalised areas, to which it offers savings and loans for housing improvement and house building. The cooperative mainly applies the solidarity group methodology and uses a holistic approach to its housing programme, with technical support that includes architectural planning, elaboration of housing project budgets, and oversight of the construction processes. The programme also promotes ecological and sustainable housing through eco-friendly building techniques, recycling, renewable energy and energy efficiency. We’re delighted to catch up with them in the fifth of our interviews.
Read more
03 Jun.

0

Ten editions of the European Microfinance Award: 2014 Winner - Kompanion (Kyrgyzstan)

Author: e-MFP
2019 marks ten editions of the European Microfinance Award and to celebrate, e-MFP has decided to reach out to the previous winners, for a ‘where are they now?’ blog series, published throughout 2019, to look at what they have been doing with their initiative since they won, and how the winning of the Award has helped, and what plans they have in store. In 2014, the theme of the Award was 'Microfinance and the Environment', focusing on microfinance initiatives to improve environmental issues in developing economies, and encourage the sector to find innovative solutions to environmental challenges. Established in Kyrgyzstan since 2004, Kompanion Financial Group provides microloans in combination with technical assistance to small-scale farmers and pastoralists (livestock herders and shepherds) to promote sustainable agriculture and natural resource management. The winning initiative presented for the 2014 Award, Kompanion’s 'Pasture Land Management Training Initiative’, was an ethno-ecological approach to pasture land preservation, addressing the pressing issue of pasture land degradation in Kyrgyzstan. It consists of a specialised loan package, 'Credits for Conservation', linked with a training program. We’re delighted to catch up with them in the fourth of our interviews.
Read more

Pages