Mercredi 15 mai 10h00-11h00 EDT (-5 GMT)

Ce webinaire sera ouvert avec des données tirées d'un rapport publié récemment par la Campagne du Sommet du Microcrédit, Vulnérabilité: Le Rapport de l'Etat de la Campagne du Sommet du Microcrédit 2013, selon lequel les praticiens de la microfinance ont atteint 13 millions de clients en moins parmi les plus pauvres en 2011 qu'en 2010. Cette baisse concerne presque exclusivement l’Inde suite à la crise de 2010 dans l'Andhra Pradesh. Nos panélistes, Dieudonné Gauthier, directeur de Chemen Lavi Miyo (CLM) chez Fonkoze et le professeur Luisa Brunori, professeur titulaire du Département de psychologie de l'Université de Bologne en Italie, se pencheront sur cette crise du point de vue du client. Que manquait-il dans la relation-client-IMF? Plus précisément, Gauthier et Luisa vont étudier comment le programme CLM de Fonkoze élimine les vulnérabilités auxquelles sont confrontés ceux qui vivent dans l'extrême-pauvreté et la façon dont la psychologie de ces clients influe leur capacité à sortir de la pauvreté.

Les autres thèmes de discussion incluent :

• la psychologie du groupe,
• comment les groupes de microfinance aident les gens à faire face à la vulnérabilité
• l’établissement de relations respectueuses, transparentes et responsables avec les clients

Ce sera une session interactive avec de multiples possibilités pour le public de donner son avis sur les questions discutées.

Biographies de l'hôte et les présentateurs

Curt Grimm, Directeur adjoint, Carsey Institut

Curt Grimm est directeur adjoint du Carsey Institute à l'Université du New Hampshire et professeur associé de recherche dans le département d'anthropologie. Auparavant, il a été Conseiller en Sciences Sociales au Bureau Afrique d'USAID.

Curt a obtenu sa Licence en Anthropologie et en Histoire de l'Université du New Hampshire et sa Maîtrise et son Doctorat en Anthropologie de l'Université d'État de New York à Binghamton.

Fanta Wolde Michael, Directeur exécutif, Réseau d’institutions africaines de microfinance (MAIN)

Pour ses études supérieures, Fanta Wolde Michael a d'abord fait la Science Politique et Administration Publique à l'Université d'Addis Abeba. Ensuite il a fait Etude de Développement se spécialisant dans les Stratégies de Développement Alternative à l'Institut des Etudes Sociales de l'Haye, Pays-Bas. Depuis 2000, il est Directeur Exécutive de Microfinance African Institutions Network (MAIN), un important réseau de microfinance basé à Lomé, Togo, qui s'est engagé dans le renforcement des capacités des institutions de microfinance en Afrique. Monsieur Fanta Wolde Michael possède une expérience de plus de 30 ans de terrain en Afrique avec les ONG internationale de Développement.

Luisa Brunori, professeur titulaire et directrice de l’Observatoire International de la Microfinance, Université de Bologne, Italie

Luisa Brunori est professeur titulaire de « Psychodynamique des groupes » à l’Université de Bologne et enseigne à la Faculté des Sciences de l’éducation et à la Faculté de Médecine. Elle enseigne également la Psychothérapie de groupe à l’Ecole de spécialisation en Psychiatrie et Psychologie clinique. Elle est la directrice et la fondatrice du C.I.R.I.G (Centro Interdipartimentale per la Ricerca e l’Intervento sui Gruppi – Centre Interdépartemental pour la Recherche et l’Intervention sur les Groupes), directrice du M.I.O (Microcredit International Observatory -Observatoire International de la Microfinance) et vice-présidente de la Fondation Grameen Italie.

Elle possède un diplôme en Education et Psychologie, avec la plus haute mention, et a rédigé une thèse sur la Psychologie organisationnelle, validée en 1974 par la Faculté d’Enseignement de l’Université de Bologne.

Gauthier Dieudonné, directeur, Chemen Lavi Miyò (CLM), Fonkoze, Haïti

Gauthier Dieudonné a rejoint Fonkoze le 19 octobre 2002 pour diriger le Programme de Développement Commercial. Avant de rejoindre Fonkoze, il était directeur commercial dans une entreprise italiano-haïtienne, spécialisée dans les matériaux de construction, le carrelage et les meubles italiens. Dieudonné possède une licence en Technologie de laboratoire médical et gestion de système d’information. Originaire d’une petite ville en Haïti, Dieudonné a vécu 25 ans entre Chicago et New York. Avant de quitter les Etats-Unis en octobre 1995, il était superviseur dans le Laboratoire d’Hématologie de l’hôpital Elmhurst General dans le Queens, dans l’Etat de New-York. Depuis décembre 2006, il dirige le programme CLM (Chemen Lavi Miyò) « Chemin vers une vie meilleure » à Fonkoze. Le programme CLM est une reproduction du programme de BRAC pour les individus extrêmement pauvres.

Depuis que la phase pilote du CLM a obtenu un taux de réussite de 96% en 2009, il a participé à plusieurs ateliers et conférences sur le fonctionnement des programmes pour les individus extrêmement pauvres et a effectué quelques présentations sur le programme CLM. Le programme CLM est maintenant dans sa cinquième année de fonctionnement, Fonkoze a diplômé plus de 2000 familles et 1300 familles font actuellement partie du programme.

Friday, April 5 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST (-5GMT)

*If you are interested in submitting a blog piece to Savings-Revolution.org please send an email to Kim Wilson at kimberley.wilson@tufts.edu

Our April webinar featured authors Jeff Ashe, Candace Nelson, and Kim Wilson in an informal and interactive discussion moderated by Bill Maddocks, followed by open mic questions from webinar participants.

Savings groups reach those rarely served by mainstream financial institutions. At weekly meetings, members deposit savings and take loans. In the process, they build commitment, discipline, and mutual assistance. Maximum transparency, a profitable structure for saving, access to small loans, and an annual lump sum of capital are the hallmarks of the savings group methodology. The outcome is empowered groups, made up mostly of women, who manage themselves as tiny financial institutions. Today, there are savings groups in 64 countries with more than 7 million members, the result of initiatives carried out by dozens of international and local NGOs.

The recently published book, Savings Groups at the Frontier, explores issues that will shape the future of savings groups. What are the costs, required inputs, and anticipated outreach of these groups? How does replication take place? How sustainable are the groups? Is it feasible to integrate financial and non-financial services? Are linkages to the formal system desirable? What is the impact of groups on members and their households? How can performance be managed? Not surprisingly, these issues mirror the preoccupation of the pioneers of microcredit. However, this book addresses them in support of group members and savers who are managing their own financial services rather than from the perspective of the financial institution.

The discussions in this book carry on those begun at the Arusha Savings Group Summit held in Tanzania in October of 2011. The authors of these chapters, including Jeff Ashe, Hugh Allen, Joanna Ledgerwood, and Paul Rippey, solicited input from a wide range of practitioners both during and after the summit. They also are the pioneers of the movement and bring extensive experience to these pages.

Candace Nelson is an accomplished writer, trainer, curriculum designer, researcher, and grants manager. As senior technical Advisor to Microfinance Opportunities and its financial education program since 2004, she has written multiple curriculum modules (including Young People: Your Future, Your Money and Risk Management and Insurance: Protect Your Family’s Future), trained trainers in French and Spanish, and outlined national strategies for financial education. She also designed financial education curriculum for CARE Burundi’s savings group program with adolescent girls. At the SEEP Network, Ms. Nelson coordinates the savings-led Financial Services Working Group, which is an inclusive platform for sharing saving group experience among a wide range of practitioners. From 1999 to 2006, she developed and managed a grant program supporting economic empowerment for women in East Africa on behalf of the McKnight Foundation. She has B.A. in hstory from Smith College and an M.S. in rural sociology from the University of Wisconsin. Ms. Nelson resides in Concord, Massachusetts.

Jeff Ashe, Director of Community Finance, Oxfam America

Jeff designed and leads Saving for Change (SfC) at Oxfam America which has grown to 570,000 Savings Group members in Mali, Senegal, Cambodia, El Salvador and Guatemala. SfC is designed based on research he carried out in Nepal, India and Zimbabwe. Jeff previously founded and led Working Capital which was for a time the largest microfinance institution in the USA and has consulted to microfinance projects in more than 30 countries. While at Acción International he directed the PISCES studies, the first worldwide study of microfinance and through that study introduced group lending to Acción in 1981 marking the start of the ramp up of Acción’s work in this field. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in the 1960s he developed the Campesino Leadership Training program where PCVs and liberation theology priests and nuns helped insure that those who tilled the land received their just share. He also teaches microfinance at Columbia and Brandeis Universities.

Kim Wilson is a lecturer at The Fletcher School and a fellow with the Center for Emerging Market Enterprises and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. Spending time in India beginning in 2001 through 2005, Professor Wilson worked closely with savings groups, connecting them to banks with a particular focus on tribal areas. She has worked for Catholic Relief Services, heading their Microfinance Unit. In that tenure, she spearheaded CRS' shift from focusing on credit to the poor to savings of the poor. Professor Wilson has consulted for many international agencies in savings and credit. Previously, she was in the private sector, occupying senior management positions in finance and franchising. In June of 2010, Professor Wilson co-edited Financial Promise for the Poor: How Groups Build Microsavings (Kumarian Press/Stylus Publishing, 2010).

Watch here

Tuesday, February 27 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST (-5GMT)

This webinar will open with news from a recently released report for the Microcredit Summit Campaign, Vulnerability: The State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report, 2013, that microfinance providers reached 13 million fewer poorest clients in 2011 than in 2010. This decline was almost exclusively in India as a result of the 2010 crisis in Andhra Pradesh. Our panelists, Chandra Shekhar (“CS”) Ghosh, Chairman and Managing Director of Bandhan in India, and Professor Luisa Brunori, full professor of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bologna in Italy, will look at that crisis from the client’s perspective. Why didn’t clients complain when the Andhra Pradesh government took such draconian actions against the microfinance industry? What was missing in the MFI-client relationship?

Other issues to be discussed include:

• The psychology of the group
• How microfinance groups help people deal with vulnerability
• How mobile technology can be part of the process that helps clients reduce vulnerability and/or increase resilience

This will be an interactive session with multiple opportunities for the audience to weigh in on the issues being discussed.

Guest Host: Larry Reed

Larry Reed is the director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. He has worked for more than twenty-five years in designing, supporting, and leading activities and organizations that empower poor people to transform their lives and their communities. For most of that time, Reed worked with Opportunity International, including five years as their Africa Regional Director and eight years as the first CEO of the Opportunity International Network.

During his time with Opportunity, Larry helped to implement a strategy for developing full-service banks that served the very poor while mobilizing hundreds of millions of dollars in savings deposits and investments. Under his leadership, Opportunity developed the first microinsurance brokerage, which now serves hundreds of millions of people around the world. Reed has taught at the Boulder Institute of Microfinance for fifteen years, served as the chair of the SEEP Network, and consulted with industry-wide initiatives like the Smart Campaign for Client Protection and MicroFinance Transparency.

Larry authored The State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report, 2011 and has contributed to several books on finance and the poor including The New World of Microfinance (Rhyne, Otero, et. al., 1996), Serving with the Poor in Africa (Yamamori, Myers, Bediako, and Reed, 1996), Globalization and the Kingdom of God (Goudzwaard, 2001), and More Pathways Out of Poverty (Harris et. al., 2006). He is a graduate of Wheaton College and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Panelist: Chandra Shekhar Ghosh

Chandra Shekhar Ghosh is the founder and CEO of Bandhan, a Kolkata-based microfinance company, which ranked second in the Forbes' list of the world’s Top 50 MFIs in 2007. He has more than twenty years experience in microfinance and development. Building on his experiences with BRAC, CARE International, and other non-governmental organizations, Ghosh founded Bandhan 2001. Bandhan currently serves more than 4 million people throughout eighteen states in India. Bandhan operates primarily in Rural West Bengal, which is largely considered to have some of the poorest communities in India.

Panelist: Luisa Brunori

Professor Luisa Brunori’s present position is Full Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, part of the Faculty of Education being specialized both in Clinical and Organizational Psychology. She is Professor of Dynamic Psychology of Groups, teaching also in the Specialization School of Clinical Psychology and in that of Psychiatry both of the Faculty of Medicine. She is Director of CIRIG, the University of Bologna’s Interdepartmental Centre for Research and Development of Group Studies, President of the University’s International Observatory for Microfinance (M.I.O.), and Vice President of Grameen Italia Foundation. The Observatory’s mission is to act as an international centre of excellence for research into and analysis of microfinance phenomena from a multidisciplinary perspective. She is affiliated to a number of professional societies, including being Past President of GAS (Group Analytic Society), London, and on the Board of Directors of International Association of Group Psychotherapy (IAGP). She has been a member of, among others, the Editorial Board of “Group Analysis” and the Editorial Board of the review “Attachment and Human relations,” London, and Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Ente Nazionale per il Microcredito, a Public Body part of the Presidency of Ministry Council.

Watch here

Thursday, February 14 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST (-5GMT)

The VSL Associates Excel-based MIS is the most widely used in the industry and has been through four generations of development. But being based on an Excel worksheet, it has a number of practical limitations. In the last year, VSL Associates, with support from the Gates Foundation and MasterCard Foundation, has developed a completely new Internet-based MIS, embedded in the SAVIX website, using bandwidth similar to Hotmail. This webinar will be an introduction to the new software and should be attended by anyone who will be enrolling in the SMDP Ghana Savings Groups: Management Information Systems training or will be using the new software and wants an orientation to its functions, operation, and application.

Presenter: Hugh Allen

Hugh Allen has worked in development since 1970, focusing for most of the last fifteen years on microfinance and technology-focused market development activities. For thirteen years, he worked for CARE and was its chief technical advisor for small economic activity development in Africa. It was during this time that he first came across the Village Saving and Lending Association (VSLA) model and realized its potential.

These days, he works exclusively to promote its adoption by multi-sectoral development agencies and southern NGOs. He is on the faculty of University of New Hampshire’s Sustainable Microenterprise and Development Program and the Boulder Microfinance Training program. He is also the co-facilitator of the SEEP working group on savings-led financial services. He has published books with ITDG on technology-related activities and savings-led financial services.

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Wednesday, February 6 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST (-5GMT)

The webinar will offer insights into the work of the CRS MISION project to reinstate the focus of microfinance institutions in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa from financially driven performance management to a more balanced performance management. Often microfinance institutions include social objectives within their mission statements but fail to ensure their management systems actually address these social goals. Over the last few years, the industry and microfinance stakeholders have begun to recognize the occurrence of the "mission drift" and/or the gap in global performance management. Thus, an increasing number of MFIs and microfinance national associations across Africa have become more interested in learning about social performance management (SPM) practices in order to address these issues in a systematic manner.

This webinar will provide a brief overview of the social performance (SP) and social performance management (SPM) concept and tools. It will provide a good introduction to the full week "Balanced Performance Management for Microfinance Institutions" course we are offering at the SMDP Ghana.

Webinar Facilitator - Kinfemichel Yibkaw Abraha

Kinfemichel Abraha joined the Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions (AEMFI) in May of 2011 as a Senior Social Performance Management Officer. Currently, he heads the social performance management unit by ensuring high quality performance, project coordination, technical support in SPM, and achievement of deliverables.

He has more than ten years of experience in the field of finance. His works cover over eight years of solid experience in the banking sector, covering all operational areas under various assignments, and close to two years in the microfinance industry.

Mr. Abraha is a public policy economist specializing in social policy design. He graduated from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands with an Msc Degree in Public Policy and Human Development, and he is certified in microfinance and SME finance (Frankfurt School of Finance and Management). He holds also a BA in economics and a diploma in accounting.

Watch here