CGAP

Let's Begin The Journey

"CGAP is just about two years old. It has been walking only for a year. PAG congratulates CGAP coming a long way in one year.
We must also remind ourselves that compared to the distance we have to cover, what we have accomplished is something like this : we have dressed ourselves to make the journey and we have begun walking towards the road. Journey has not begun yet.

Accomplishments so far:

• Ground rules have been made
• We've started creating a common language
• We have reviewed the existing programs
• We know exactly what CGAP stands for: financial service to the poorest. If financial service is not reaching the poorest, it is not CGAP. When we allocate one dollar under CGAP label, now we know, it means at least one dollar will reach the poorest as loan or financial service or as a result of the investment. We know who is poor, who is the poorest. We have assembled a broad range of identification tools.
• We started with heavily clouded sky as far as Micro-finance and microcredit is concerned. All kinds of initiatives were being passed around as microcredit initiatives. We've come a long way in sorting these out. But the job is not complete yet. Lot more work needs to be done.

PAG is very clear in its position. PAG has been emphasising on transparency, precision, and clarity in our work.
• We must do what we say, we must say what we do.
• Let us not fool each other.
• Let us not fool the poorest again.
• We'll applaud heartily anyone who will report that he has reached financial service to one poorest person, but we wouldn't know how to respond to the news if someone says : we have reached financial service to 100,000 people, some of whom may be poor.
• We are insisting on sharply designed, sharply recorded, sharply reported programs. We are emphasising quality in CGAP work before anything else.
  
  Future Concerns:

  Another area of PAG concern is capacity building and institution building. Capacity building amongst

  • donor gencies
  • wholesalers
  • practitioners
  • government agencies
  • all financial agencies
  
  

  We feel that it is the creation of appropriate institutions which will make the CGAP dream come true.

  We strongly feel that creation of second tier organizations, networks, apex organisations, wholesale organizations or whatever other form the organisation may takes, is an emerging necessity.

  Creation of country level micro-financial funds like PKSF (Palli Katma Shahayak Shangashtha) or The Rural Employment Assistance Foundation set up by the government of Bangladesh to on lend funds to NGOs which are doing poverty focused microcredit, will be one demonstrated way to build in-country management capacity.

  There are 1.3 billion poorest people on this planet. Our dream is to see CGAP creating an environment so that one day soon all will have access to credit. We must not forget our task. We are involved in constructing financial super highways, local broadways, linkroads, dirt roads, to make this access possible, sustainable and affordable.

  Another area PAG has been emphasizing is for CGAP to help create appropriate legal, regulatory and administrative environment within each country, so that legal and regulatory barriers are removed and enabling environment can be created.

  PAG takes this opportunity to appreciate and admire donor initiative in micro finance area taken so far. We look forward to the day when CGAP initiative will be recognised as a wonderful example of how donors can join hands and coordinate their activities in one vital area of global concern * such as, elimination of poverty.
  
  Need to mainstream:

  This brings us to the subject of mainstreaming of CGAP activities. CGAP is a strategic initiative. It is not a stand alone donor project. Ideas and concerns of CGAP should spread through all the activities and programs of the concerned donor agency or institution. That was the vision of CGAP. It remains an important component of vision. We are already seeing many happy signs of it in some donor programs, particularly in the World Bank. We feel happy because a beginning has been made. But we urgently hope this will spread in strength and coverage to become a significant influence in project/program design & fund allocation.

  There are many problems for all of us. A particular problem I cannot help but mention. We always see a strange situation where on the donor side large amount of earmarked money is waiting to be released for years, on the other side excellent microfinance programs are wilting away to non-existence because they cannot access funds.

  We must resolve these problems. We cannot make poor people suffer because each of us is comfortably sitting behind some stupid rules, conventions, covenants or what have you and take up defensive position.

  We all assemble here with enormous good will. We saw the convergence of overwhelming global goodwill in the Microcredit Summit, early this year.

  Let us translate this enormous good will in an unprecedented upsurge of action --action to wash out all traces of poverty from this planet for all time to come.

  We can definitely do it. We can do it, if we want to do it.

  Let us all want it passionately, let us want it desperately, let us want it urgently.