Mr. Udaia Kumar, Managing Director of SHARE, (Andhra Pradesh, India)is happy to report that he has reached agreement with CGAP, World Bank, to fund the expansion of SHARE to 20,000 poor households, served by eight branches. This will enable SHARE to achieve institutional viability. 

"It is a breakthrough," says Professor David Gibbons, Executive Trustee of CASHPOR. "SHARE meets all the CGAP, World Bank eligibility criteria, except that of operational viability, but it is on track for that." 

Fund releases from CGAP will be contingent on SHARE meeting the annual performance targets drawn from its four-year institutional financial viability plan. "SHARE's performance will be monitored closely," Gibbons remarked. "Udaia Kumar and his hard-working staff are shouldering a heavy responsibility, but I am confident, from their track record to date, that they will come through with flying colours." 

SHARE which has received the initial seed and scaling up funds from Grameen Trust for its Veludurti and Dachepally branches respectively has already reached 3635 members. Dachepally branch has achieved financial viability in 1996.

Activists for Social Alternatives (ASA), which works in the Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu, India, will open its fourth branch-Vidyal (Dawn)4-with a US$ 10,000 grant from the Coronado Rotary Club in California. This grant, received in March, will pay for the institution building costs of the new branch - and also be used to leverage at least $30,000 from NABARD for on-lending to Vidyal 4 borrowers. 

This contribution from Rotary, the result of tireless lobbying by its president, Marshall Saunders, will enable ASA to reach at least another 500 poor women over the next two years. It also signals a new understanding between the Coronado Club and CASHPOR that what most credit programs need to reach more poor women is not loan funds, which are available from local development banks, but institutional funding-to take a branch from "Go to self-sufficiency". 

ASA is currently opening its third branch with funding form the Grameen Trust. ASA already has 3,158 active borrowers in two branches; with this renewed support it is likely to grow strongly in staff and outreach, towards self-sufficiency, over the next two years.

The Fulfilment Campaign 

The key component of the Summit Campaign is the Institutional Action Plan. All institutions that join a Microcredit Summit Council, agree to announce an Institutional Action Plan outlining how their institution will contribute to the fulfilment of the Summit's goal¾ by-February 1998, or within one year of joining the Council. 

Microcredit practitioners working in developing countries, donor agencies, UN agencies, and international financial institutions have already received Action Plan Summary Sheets. All other Council member institutions will receive an Institutional Action Plan Summary in June 1997. By publicizing and sharing bold Institutional Action Plans-and the progress institutions are making toward fulfilling them-we hope to inspire commitments and actions in others. 

Microcredit Summit Campaign Committee 
 
Council of Heads of State and Government 
H. E. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh 

Council of International Financial Institutions 
*James D. Wolfensohn, President, The World Bank 
Fawzi H. Al-Sultan, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development 
 
Council of UN Agencies 
Gus Speth, Administrator, United Nations Development Program 
Noeleen Heyzer, Managing Director, UNIFEM 

Council of Donor Agencies 
Huguette Labelle, President, Canadian International Development Agency 
 
Council of Domestic Government Agencies 
Eduardo Pablo Amadeo, Minister of Social Development, Argentina 

Council of Parliamentarians 
*Prof. Dr. Winfried Pinger, German Bundestag, Development Spokesman, CDU/CSU 
Wakako Hironaka, Member, House of Councillors, Japan 

Council of Corporations 
* Robert Shapiro, Chairman and CEO, Monsanto Company 

Council of Foundations and Philanthropists 
*George Soros, Chairman, Open Society Institute 
 
Council of Practitioners 
Nancy Barry, President, Women's World Banking 
Ela Bhatt, General Secretary, Self Employed Women's Association 
Michael Chu, President, ACCION 
*Connie Evans, President, Women's Self-Employment Program 
John Hatch, Founder, FINCA International 
*Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director, Grameen Bank 
 
Council of Advocates 
Dr. Harka Gurung, Director, Asian and Pacific Development Center, Malaysia 
Hon. Bella Abzug, President, Women's Environment and Development Organization 
 
Council of Non-Governmental Organizations 
Mazide Ndiaye, President and CEO, FAVDO 

Council of Religious Institutions 
Dr. M. Aram, President, Shanti Ashram 
Dr. William Vendley, Secretary General, World Conference on Religion and Peace 
* Member of the Summit Campaign Executive Committee 

The Microcredit Summit Secretariat is committed to ensuring that the momentum generated by the Summit is not lost and will provide the following: 
A quarterly newsletter, Countdown 2005, will provide a forum for promoting best practices and sharing resources and will highlight progress in creating and implementing bold action plans in support of the Summit's goal. 

The recently setup interactive site (http://www.microcreditsummit.org) will publicize the successes of microcredit programs and facilitate networking and the exchange of best practices and resources. 

The Secretariat will also produce a report every two years, monitoring global progress toward the achievement of the Summit's goal and will provide materials for use in education and outreach. 

For further information contact: 
 

The idea of national trusts to fund grassroots microfinance organization-mooted by Professor Yunus of Grameen Bank at the Microcredit Summit-is attracting considerable interest among CASHPOR members. 

Yunus' proposal is for private trusts to be set up at national level in all countries with large poor populations. Trustees would be recognized leaders known to be concerned with fighting poverty-from microfinance organizations, academia, womens' group and the philanthropic community. "The involvement of government would be kept to an absolute minimum to ensure that this does not become another conduit for political patronage," 

Money paid into the trust by donors and governments, would be lent to microfinance institutions starting up or in the process of expanding to the numbers needed to become self-sufficient. The operation of the trust would be simple and transparent; all microcredit institutions genuinely working with the poor would be eligible; no conditions would be put on the funds other than meeting agreed annual performance targets. 

The idea of national trusts has grown out of the highly successful experience of the Palli Karma Shayak Foundation (PKSF) in Bangladesh, which has funded more than 130 microfinance organizations. Of the estimated 10 million poor households in Asia now reached by credit, nearly half live in Bangladesh. This impressive outreach can be attributed partly to the Grameen Bank and other major NGOs like BRAC, PROSHIKA and ASA, but also to the work of PKSF in making the rapid expansion of other microfinance practitioners possible. 

If the goal of reaching 100 million of the worlds' poorest by the year 2005 is to be achieved, then many countries will have to consider the option of setting up national trusts to play the same enabling role as the PKSF. 

Professor Yunus also proposed at he Microcredit Summit that third world debt could be used to fuel these trusts - and thus reduce the poverty of the third world, rather than drain it of resources. "It could work something like this," he said. "The debtor governments would pay local currency into a local microcredit [trust] fund... For each sum of local currency deposited in a microcredit fund, that country's government would have its foreign debt reduced by an equivalent amount of hard currency at a mutually agreed exchange rate. That would stop one of the most troublesome aspects of the debt crisis, the bleeding of hard currency from Third World countries" 

The Grameen Bank replication movement in Asia will be subject to a thorough evaluation this year-but with a difference. This will be a bottom-up evaluation of the replication system. All the actors in the chain-from centers to project managers to trainers/ wholesalers to donors-will evaluate themselves. This process is initiated by GTZ of Germany, which has funded the replication movement in Asia through the Grameen Trust since 1992. GTZ aims to use this evaluation to improve the effectiveness of the whole system of replication for the future. 

A preparatory meeting at the Grameen Trust in Dhaka, in February last, set the guidelines for assessment of each actor in the system. These question the impact on poor households, the effectiveness and outreach of GBRs, the "after sales" services of the Grameen Trust and the adequacy of the funding and controls of GTZ. The results of this self-scrutiny will be brought together at a replication workshop in September, which will identify the success factors as well as the problems and obstacles in the replication chain, create problem solving tools and formulate action plans for improvement at each level. 

Karl Osner, as consultant to GTZ for this evaluation, hopes that by fully involving all levels of the replication process in this evaluation, sharing experiences and jointly solving problems, a consensus on improvements to the replication system can be reached and implemented.

Rotarian Bing Han of Westlake Village Rotary Club visited the Philippines in November, 1996, for a field study of the micro credit operator of Project Dungganon in Bacolod, Negros Occidental, Philippines. 

Dungganon ("Honorable" in the local dialect) is a Grameen Bank replicator that made its first loans in 1989. After some years of difficulties resulting in high failure and low repayment rates, Dungganon has risen as a Phoenix and with the support form national and international organizations now has stable and steady growth. Dungganon has at present seven branches and over seven thousand active borrowers (or about 30,000 persons including their family members) living in over 100 villages. Total loan disbursements in 1996 amounted to about 22 million pesos or equivalent to about $845,000 US. The operation is nearing break even. 

The five year development plan of Dungganon increases active membership to about 10,000 persons in 1997, causing it to reach self sufficiency. The balance of the five year plan is to reach 20,000 active borrowers by the year 2000. They need more funding to support this level of growth. 

Rotary Clubs interested in supporting Project Dungganon, should contact Marshall Saunders at 619-435-7980 or Bing Han at 805-499-8442.

Please note that from now on, all Grameen publications will be available in the USA at the following address: 

Credit Programs for the Poor Vol I and Vol II Edited by M. Latif, S.R. Khandker, Z.H. Khan, Published by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and World Bank, Dhaka 1996 

Grameen Bank : Impact, Costs and Program Sustainability: S. Khandker, 

in Asian Development Review, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 97-130, 1996 Asian Development Bank. 

A book containing institutional profiles of 680 micro credit operators can be obtained from: 

The Micro Credit Summit Secretariat 236 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Ste. 300 Washington, D.C. 20002 
Fax: 202-546-3228 
E-mail : Microcredit@igc.apc.org   

The cost of the book is US$15.00 plus shipping. You can either include your Visa, Mastercard or AMEX credit card number, alternatively, you can ask for an invoice with the book.  
For further information on the Micro Credit Summit, visit the web site at:     

http://www.igc.org/MicrocreditSummit.

The 22nd International Dialogue Program jointly organized by Grameen Trust and Grameen Bank, was held on May 3-15, 1997. 

Fifteen participants from Angola, India, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Tanzania , and USA, took part in the Dialogue. 

The participants went on field trips to various location is spread over different Grameen zones i.e Dhaka, Dinajpur, Rajshahi and Faridpur. The participants spent six days at Grameen Bank branches to observe closely the formation and functioning of groups, training of the group members and day to day operations of the bank branches¾ the smallest management unit of the bank. They also visited the Area and Zonal Offices and had the opportunity to attend some of the workshops for Grameen borrowers. 

  On their return, the participants shared their field experiences relating to actual operations of Grameen Bank and its impact on the lives of the rural poor. Dr H.D. Pant, Chairman, Nirdhan project from Nepal, as a Resource person, made a presentation on his experience in replicating the Grameen system in his country. The final two days were spent in group discussions and preparation of action plans in which each participant expressed his ideas of the Grameen Approach and the feasibility of its replication in home country. 

A number of participants have already formulated preliminary project proposals for obtaining funding support from Grameen Trust and other funding institutions. 

Eleven participants attended the National Dialogue Program. Among them, nine represented organizations working in the urban areas of Dhaka and Chittagong, while the other two were NGOs from Rangamati district and Hatiya islands. Two urban replicators Dr. Masudul Quader, Project Director, DSK and Mr. Zahirul Islam, Executive Director, IDF participated as resource persons. 

Grameen Trust in collaboration with UNOPS Malaysia and UNOPS Myanmar, will be implementing a Grameen Bank replication in the delta areas of Myanmar. Grameen Trust will provide technical and administrative support to set up five branch offices and one zonal office in Bogalay, Labutta and Mawlamyine townships of Delta Zone. The project hopes to target 13,335 poor households over a thirty month period. Six key personnel have already been selected from Grameen Bank to initiate the project in July 1997.

The institute currently has ten members including the Fidelity Investments, Banque Nationale de Paris, the World Bank and the State Street Corporation. The next event on the calendar is the annual retreat in Macau, on September 18 & 19 . The discussions will focus on creating the environment that enhances growth in domestic savings.

Grameen Trust will organize the following dialogue, workshop and special training programs between June and December, 1997. The dialogues provides an opportunity for participants to gain first hand experience in Grameen philosophy and operational procedures. It will enable participants to closely interact with individuals and institutions in other countries who are already active in poverty alleviation through replication of Grameen approach. It is a forum for mutual learning, sharing an exciting field experience and initiating quick practical follow up action.

International Dialogue 
23rd Dialogue : 03-15 August,1997 
24th Dialogue : 16-28 November, 1997 
25th Dialogue : Feb. 22 - Mar. 6, 1998 
26th Dialogue : Apr. 9 - May 1, 1998 

Exposure Evaluation Dialogue 
Exposure Evaluation Dialogue: October 
Hosted by Pro Mujer in Bolivia. 
 

Please send a contribution of $ 25 in favour of Grameen Trust and put a friend on the mailing list of Grameen Dialogue. Let your friend be an important part in the chain of people committed to work for the elimination of poverty from this earth.

1. Grameen Bank Information  
This page includes an extended search utility for specific key word searches. This page, however, is still under construction. Expected date of completion is after June, 1997. Please bear with us. 

2. Microcredit Summit Information (http://titsoc.soc.titech.ac.jp/titsoc/higuchi-lab/icm/summit.html) Do an Internet search for RESULTS. 

3. The current Grameen Home Page 
(http://www.citechco.net/grameen/index.html) An extended search utility is available here. 

4. Grameen Microcredit Info  
(http://www.accessone.com/~carlp) Includes speech of Dr. Yunus, and other useful links to microcredit information   

5. Grameen Bank Support Group/ Australia 
(http://www.rdc.com.au/grameen) Look for the Internet version of the Grameen Dialogue here! 

6. Grameen Bank Support Group / Japan 
(Bisho Volunteer Organization has a website in Japan URL: http://www.yomogi.or.jp/~bisho) 
 

In July, Grameen Foundation begins its fourth month of operations as the representative of the Grameen network in the Americas. 

Please contact Alex Counts, the executive director of Grameen Foundation, for any information you may need relating to Grameen Bank and its family of enterprises and the program of activities of Grameen replication network. 

The objectives of Grameen Foundation are: 

• Promote the Grameen philosophy in the Americas, particularly by representing Grameen at conferences and other gatherings; 
• Help mobilize the resources necessary to ensure that 10 million poor people benefit from Grameen replication programs by 2005;
• Disseminate information and publications about Grameen;
• Support the adoption and expansion of Grameen Bank replication programs in both Latin America and North America;
• Forge partnerships to benefit the poor with NGOs, businesses, philanthropies, governmental and international organizations, universities and the public;
• Market products produced by Grameen Bank borrowers and Grameen companies; and 
• Establish a microcredit library for public and scholarly use. 

Grameen Trust, in collaboration with CARD (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development) organized an evaluation dialogue on CARD's Grameen replication Program at IRRI, Los Banos, In June 12 to 15, 1997. 

The Dialogue was attended by practitioners from thirteen non government organizations in the Philippines who are involved in microcredit and follow the Grameen approach in their operations. The participants developed their respective action plans and committed themselves to reach 1.3 million of the poorest Filipino households by the year 2005. The Dialogue also had representatives from government funding agencies such as the Peoples' Credit and Finance Corporation and the Land Bank of the Philippines. 

  To understand CARD's growth and its impact on the lives of borrowers, the Dialogue participants shared the reports and evaluations prepared by CARD itself, the independent evaluation of Dr. Mahabub Hussain and Professor Mimi Ocampo, and the evaluation of fellow practitioners. 

The fourth meeting of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP) and the Policy Advisory Group (PAG) meeting were held at the Asian Development Bank headquarters in Manila, on June 16-19, 1997. This also coincided with the meeting of the Consultative Forum on the Role of Donors in Microfinance. 

CGAP's performance was reviewed and there was discussion on the future directions of the CGAP. The Consultative Forum deliberated on issues like donor instruments and procedures, donor partnerships with practitioners and the methods for measuring performance of projects and partners.

Women for Women in Bosnia, a US based non profit organization, recently launched a microcredit program in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina following the Grameen Bank system. The program started in Vogosca, in the rural outskirts of Sarajevo. Many of its surviving residents were refugees in different parts of the country during the four year war and have recently gone back to rebuild their homes. Employment rate in the area is only 10%, mostly in the informal sector. 

The program faces issues which may not exist in a peaceful environment. As they come back to their homes, they are not only rebuilding their homes, but also their community. Trust and cooperation among community members are sometime lacking and many potential borrowers are concerned about forming groups. As 80% of the refugees in Bosnia were women who were the target of mass rape policy during the war, many of the members also suffer from depression and low self esteem. A lot of training was invested to raise members' morale and strengthen the concept of group solidarity and group trust. Many members came out of training with creative business plans and greater confidence in their ability to run their businesses. Those owning some farming land, are interested in investing in animal raising and farming. The program has been welcomed by the village residents and local municipality alike, as it is seen as one of the few avenues to help the villagers start their lives again. 

WWB has received seed capital funds from Grameen Trust to initiate replication of the Grameen Bank system in Bosnia. 

¾ Zainab Salbi, President, Women for Women in Bosnia.