Hybrid #EMW2023 opens, with programme dominated by green & climate smart finance, forcibly displaced persons, and food security & nutrition
Three-day, member-led hybrid conference comprises over 40 sessions across various formats – interviews, panels, working groups and plenaries- Record number of attendees – over 650 – in-person in Luxembourg and online
- Topic streams on food security & nutrition, gender mainstreaming, client protection, technology, and outcomes
- Plenaries on green and climate-smart finance; food security & nutrition; financial inclusion of Forcibly Displaced People; and the downstream impact of new EU social and environmental fund regulations
- Launch of e-MFP publications Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition and Financial Inclusion Compass 2023
- European Microfinance Award ceremony takes place on Thursday 16th November, 6:15pm at European Investment Bank
Thursday 16th November 2023 - For Immediate Release
EMW2023 opened Wednesday with a plenary to recognise (and celebrate) 10 years of e-MFP’s Green and Inclusive Climate-Smart Action Group, and to present the main milestones that have been achieved so far and the evolving challenges in the field. The conference began with a welcome from e-MFP’s Executive Secretary, Christoph Pausch, who, announcing a record number of delegates attending - over 650 - said that during the pandemic, it wasn’t clear if people would ever return to meeting in-person like before. But he pointed to e-MFP’s tagline, ‘Connecting the Inclusive Finance World’, and observed that hybrid events like EMW2023 have dispelled that concern, “retaining the indispensable human interaction but complementing this with a hybrid function that continues one of the better legacies of Covid: making e-MFP’s work more accessible to more people in more places”.
Geneviève Hengen, Deputy Director of the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs – Directorate for Development Cooperation then gave an opening address. She began by noting positively the number of sessions on the EMW programme on gender equity and mainstreaming, which builds on the momentum developed last year when ‘Financial Inclusion that Works for Women’ was the topic of the EMA2022, and which attracted a record field of applicants. She acknowledged the enormous importance of green and inclusive climate-smart finance as well in this year’s conference programme, starting with this opening plenary. The e-MFP Action Group “has emerged as a key player”, she said, in driving progress in a field which is becoming “arguably the most important and urgent area of inclusive finance today”. She said that “it is a known fact that women are particularly vulnerable to climate change, and they have fewer tools to cope; less known is the link between these issues and inclusive finance, which covers many areas from adaptation, agri finance, linkages, and which has a major role to play in implementing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals”.
Green finance is an important lever for improving the resilience of the poorest, she said, citing the particular importance of digital bank accounts and inclusive insurance, and finished by saying the Luxembourg government’s commitment to this great challenge is clear in its investment of fully 1% of GNI in development finance.
These opening remarks opened both the conference and the opening plenary on green and inclusive climate-smart finance, which has grown to be arguably the highest profile and most critical topic in inclusive finance; indeed e-MFP’s Financial Inclusion Compass 2023, launched at this plenary, bears this out. But if 2023 is the year of Green Inclusive Finance, then 2013 can the year the idea was really born, with the creation of what was then called the e-MFP Microfinance and Environment Action Group.
Launched by a small group of e-MFP members, this group has had enormous impact across the sector, inspiring investors, donors, researchers, and practitioners to add the environmental lens to their work. In 2021, the Action Group's Green Index -- first launched in 2014 -- became the foundation of the new Dimension 7 - Environmental Performance Management - in the Universal Standards of Social Performance Management, the first time a new dimension was added to the standards since their launch in 2012. The Green Inclusive and Climate-Smart Finance Action Group continues to guide the sector in this topic, most recently, with the launch of the Green Map in 2023. This plenary session celebrated the contribution of the GICSF-AG to the sector, exploring both its early years, its current work, and also where it may head in the future.
This year EMW welcomes more than 650 professionals to over 40 sessions – plenaries, breakouts, closed-door roundtables and Action Group meetings – organised across several thematic streams. These include: ‘Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition’ (the topic of the European Microfinance Award 2023), Green and Climate-Smart Finance, Refugees and Forcibly Displaced Persons, Digitalisation, Investing, Financial Health, Client Protection, Outcomes & Impact, and others.
Other topics covered during the many EMW2023 sessions include two sessions on client overindebtedness in Cambodia, client protection, women’s leadership and gender mainstreaming, regulation, insurance, Fintech, WASH, data and more. And there will be many networking slots for attendees to either mingle over food and drink, or to meet in small groups in a more private context. In addition, there will be several Action Group (AG) meetings, plus some closed, invitation only sessions, breakfast events, networking sessions, and a state-of-the-art conference platform and app for both in-person and remote attendees to use.
These sessions and events are supplemented by three further plenary sessions. This morning saw the plenary on ‘Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition’, the topic of the European Microfinance Award (EMA) 2023, the €100,000 prize awarded by the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, which this year seeks to highlight innovations by financial inclusion organisations to safeguard access to quality and affordable food for vulnerable populations and to increase resilience of sustainable food systems.
A highlight of EMW is the Award ceremony tonight, November 16th, at the European Investment Bank. The ceremony will involve films profiling the three finalists, Fortune Credit Ltd from Kenya; Fundación Génesis Empresarial from Guatemala; and Yikri from Burkina Faso, plus speeches from Dr Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank; Christophe Schlitz, Director of the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs – Directorate for Development Cooperation; a keynote speech by Ambassador Agrina Mussa, Board Member of FINCA International; and will conclude with an address by HRH the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, President of the High Jury, who will then announce of the winner.
Friday morning will kick off with a plenary session entitled ‘Financial Inclusion of Forcibly Displaced Persons (FDPs) - experiences from the field’. As of June 2023, there were more than 102 million FDPs around the world. This plenary will explore on-the-field implementation experiences of financial inclusion projects in different countries from the Global South and Europe.
Finally, EMW2023 will wrap up with a closing plenary entitled ‘From Brussels to the World: The Downstream Impact of EU Fund Regulations’ that will discuss the likely downstream impact of recent European Union fund regulations governing social and environmental investments.
END
The European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) is the leading network of organisations and individuals active in the financial inclusion sector in developing countries. It numbers over 130 members from all geographic regions and specialisations of the microfinance community, including consultants & support service providers, investors, FSPs, multilateral & national development agencies, NGOs and researchers. Up to two billion people remain financially excluded. To address this, the Platform seeks to promote co-operation, dialogue and innovation among these diverse stakeholders working in developing countries. e-MFP fosters activities which increase global access to affordable, quality sustainable and inclusive financial services for the un(der)banked by driving knowledge-sharing, partnership development and innovation.
For more information, contact: Niamh Watters, nwatters@e-mfp.eu; www.e-mfp.eu
Hybrid #EMW2023 opens, with programme dominated by green & climate smart finance, forcibly displaced persons, and food security & nutrition
Thursday 16th November 2023 - For Immediate Release
EMW2023 opened Wednesday with a plenary to recognise (and celebrate) 10 years of e-MFP’s Green and Inclusive Climate-Smart Action Group, and to present the main milestones that have been achieved so far and the evolving challenges in the field. The conference began with a welcome from e-MFP’s Executive Secretary, Christoph Pausch, who, announcing a record number of delegates attending - over 650 - said that during the pandemic, it wasn’t clear if people would ever return to meeting in-person like before. But he pointed to e-MFP’s tagline, ‘Connecting the Inclusive Finance World’, and observed that hybrid events like EMW2023 have dispelled that concern, “retaining the indispensable human interaction but complementing this with a hybrid function that continues one of the better legacies of Covid: making e-MFP’s work more accessible to more people in more places”.
Geneviève Hengen, Deputy Director of the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs – Directorate for Development Cooperation then gave an opening address. She began by noting positively the number of sessions on the EMW programme on gender equity and mainstreaming, which builds on the momentum developed last year when ‘Financial Inclusion that Works for Women’ was the topic of the EMA2022, and which attracted a record field of applicants. She acknowledged the enormous importance of green and inclusive climate-smart finance as well in this year’s conference programme, starting with this opening plenary. The e-MFP Action Group “has emerged as a key player”, she said, in driving progress in a field which is becoming “arguably the most important and urgent area of inclusive finance today”. She said that “it is a known fact that women are particularly vulnerable to climate change, and they have fewer tools to cope; less known is the link between these issues and inclusive finance, which covers many areas from adaptation, agri finance, linkages, and which has a major role to play in implementing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals”.
Green finance is an important lever for improving the resilience of the poorest, she said, citing the particular importance of digital bank accounts and inclusive insurance, and finished by saying the Luxembourg government’s commitment to this great challenge is clear in its investment of fully 1% of GNI in development finance.
These opening remarks opened both the conference and the opening plenary on green and inclusive climate-smart finance, which has grown to be arguably the highest profile and most critical topic in inclusive finance; indeed e-MFP’s Financial Inclusion Compass 2023, launched at this plenary, bears this out. But if 2023 is the year of Green Inclusive Finance, then 2013 can the year the idea was really born, with the creation of what was then called the e-MFP Microfinance and Environment Action Group.
Launched by a small group of e-MFP members, this group has had enormous impact across the sector, inspiring investors, donors, researchers, and practitioners to add the environmental lens to their work. In 2021, the Action Group's Green Index -- first launched in 2014 -- became the foundation of the new Dimension 7 - Environmental Performance Management - in the Universal Standards of Social Performance Management, the first time a new dimension was added to the standards since their launch in 2012. The Green Inclusive and Climate-Smart Finance Action Group continues to guide the sector in this topic, most recently, with the launch of the Green Map in 2023. This plenary session celebrated the contribution of the GICSF-AG to the sector, exploring both its early years, its current work, and also where it may head in the future.
This year EMW welcomes more than 650 professionals to over 40 sessions – plenaries, breakouts, closed-door roundtables and Action Group meetings – organised across several thematic streams. These include: ‘Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition’ (the topic of the European Microfinance Award 2023), Green and Climate-Smart Finance, Refugees and Forcibly Displaced Persons, Digitalisation, Investing, Financial Health, Client Protection, Outcomes & Impact, and others.
Other topics covered during the many EMW2023 sessions include two sessions on client overindebtedness in Cambodia, client protection, women’s leadership and gender mainstreaming, regulation, insurance, Fintech, WASH, data and more. And there will be many networking slots for attendees to either mingle over food and drink, or to meet in small groups in a more private context. In addition, there will be several Action Group (AG) meetings, plus some closed, invitation only sessions, breakfast events, networking sessions, and a state-of-the-art conference platform and app for both in-person and remote attendees to use.
These sessions and events are supplemented by three further plenary sessions. This morning saw the plenary on ‘Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition’, the topic of the European Microfinance Award (EMA) 2023, the €100,000 prize awarded by the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, which this year seeks to highlight innovations by financial inclusion organisations to safeguard access to quality and affordable food for vulnerable populations and to increase resilience of sustainable food systems.
A highlight of EMW is the Award ceremony tonight, November 16th, at the European Investment Bank. The ceremony will involve films profiling the three finalists, Fortune Credit Ltd from Kenya; Fundación Génesis Empresarial from Guatemala; and Yikri from Burkina Faso, plus speeches from Dr Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank; Christophe Schlitz, Director of the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs – Directorate for Development Cooperation; a keynote speech by Ambassador Agrina Mussa, Board Member of FINCA International; and will conclude with an address by HRH the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, President of the High Jury, who will then announce of the winner.
Friday morning will kick off with a plenary session entitled ‘Financial Inclusion of Forcibly Displaced Persons (FDPs) - experiences from the field’. As of June 2023, there were more than 102 million FDPs around the world. This plenary will explore on-the-field implementation experiences of financial inclusion projects in different countries from the Global South and Europe.
Finally, EMW2023 will wrap up with a closing plenary entitled ‘From Brussels to the World: The Downstream Impact of EU Fund Regulations’ that will discuss the likely downstream impact of recent European Union fund regulations governing social and environmental investments.
END
The European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) is the leading network of organisations and individuals active in the financial inclusion sector in developing countries. It numbers over 130 members from all geographic regions and specialisations of the microfinance community, including consultants & support service providers, investors, FSPs, multilateral & national development agencies, NGOs and researchers. Up to two billion people remain financially excluded. To address this, the Platform seeks to promote co-operation, dialogue and innovation among these diverse stakeholders working in developing countries. e-MFP fosters activities which increase global access to affordable, quality sustainable and inclusive financial services for the un(der)banked by driving knowledge-sharing, partnership development and innovation.
For more information, contact: Niamh Watters, nwatters@e-mfp.eu; www.e-mfp.eu