Microcredit Summit in Delhi

The Asian Pacific Region Microcredit Summit Meeting of Councils (APRMS) was held last February in New Delhi. Both this meeting and the Africa meeting, held last October, have made a profound difference to the Microcredit Summit Campaign and to the families the program has tried to reach.

The event brought together 663 delegates from 20 countries in Asia and the Pacific and a total of 32 countries worldwide. The largest programs of Bangladesh and Indonesia, and therefore the largest programs in the world, were all represented.

Participants seriously engaged in the Microcredit Summit's core themes: (1) reaching the poorest; (2) reaching and empowering women; (3) building financial self-sufficient institutions; and (4) ensuring a positive measurable impact on the lives of clients and their families. They did so through plenary discussions of the papers commissioned for the meeting, day long courses, and additional training of leaders sessions on these themes.

A training video on the CASHPOR House Index was premiered at the meeting and delegates left with copies of that program and the previously produced video on Participatory Wealth Ranking from South Africa. These poverty measurement tools are helping us to enter new territory in the field.

Given that Asia and the Pacific represent more than three-quarters of the 13.8 million poorest families reached at the end of 1999, these successes could not have happened at a more relevant time and place. Plans have begun for the Latin American/Caribbean meeting of MCS to be held in Mexico later this year.

Grameen Trust organized two meetings of the Grameen Global Network during the Summit. One session was entitled "The Experience of Grameen Networks in the Asia-Pacific"; the other was entitled "Experience of Grameen Operations in Kosovo and Myanmar". Both sessions were chaired by Professor Muhammad Yunus and were well attended. Grameen Trust and Grameen Bank also had an exhibition booth with Grameen publications on display and sale.

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40th International
Dialogue Programme

The Fortieth International Dialogue Program, organized jointly by Grameen Bank and Grameen Trust, was held from February 11 to 23, 2001. Thirteen participants, from nine different countries, (Honduras, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Indonesia, El Salvador, Italy, Thailand and USA), attended the Dialogue Program.

Chief Executives of IMSE, India and WCS, Nepal, were invited to attended the Dialogue as resource persons. They shared their experiences regarding methodologies used in Grameen replication in India and Nepal.

Participants from Adelante Foundation, Honduras, Commonwealth Youth Program India, CEI, USA, PRODESA, Nicaragua, RSSI, Thailand, GF-USA, Alisa KHADIJAH, Indonesia, and ASAPROSAR, El Salvador, presented proposals and action plans for their respective projects. They proposed to implement them upon their return to their countries.

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Grameen Workshop on Attaining Financial Self-Sufficiency

Grameen Trust organized a workshop on Attaining Financial Self-sufficiency, held at the Grameen Bank from February 24 - March 2, 2001. Participants from China, India, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Tanzania and Vietnam, attended the workshop. This workshop was designed to meet the needs of microcredit practitioners in achieving an efficient financial management of their programs, so that they could attain financial self-sufficiency. The workshop provided an important forum for Grameen Bank Replication Projects (GBRPs) for sharing their ideas and concerns regarding financial sustainability, the difficulties faced in achieving it and the strategies that would be helpful in solving these problems.

The workshop tried to familiarize the participants with tools and techniques which would help them to plan and achieve financial self-sufficiency of their organizations as fast as possible. Participants were exposed to standard performance indicators and they learnt how to apply these in order to monitor profitability, efficiency and portfolio quality and especially how these may be used to improve decision making. More importantly they understood the importance of main financial statements, especially to format these to present an accurate and transparent picture of their micro finance operations.

Given the importance of sustainable interest rates and repayment crisis, the participants were exposed to the best practices for setting sustainable interest rates and measuring delinquency of their microcredit programs. The participants also become familiar with the tools and techniques for developing easy to use and effective branch viability plans.

The workshop followed a participatory approach. Each of the presentations was followed by a practical session to see whether the participants had understood the basic concepts underlying the topics discussed. Detailed discussion took place after the practical sessions to clarify and deepen the understanding of the participants. The participants also took part in an exercise to develop a branch viability plan for a hypothetical microcredit organization.

During the last session of the workshop, participants used the tools and techniques they had learnt in this workshop to make self-evaluation of their own programs and propose changes.

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Grameen Microfinance Forum
In Manila

A microfinance forum sponsored by Grameen Trust, Grameen Foundation USA, PhilNet and Citibank will take place in Manila on May 30-31 2001. The objective of the forum will be to bring together microcredit practitioners as well as representatives from Citibank in Asia, to share experiences of Grameen Replication Projects and explore possibility of new collaboration in the future.

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