9/25/08 — World Millennieum Development Goals Blogging Day

Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation are asking you to join with bloggers around the world to post about making poverty history on September 25th 2008, the World Millennium Development Goals blogging day. More than 300 bloggers are raising their voices to let people know about the 1.2 billion people who live on less than $1 a day. Whether you want to write about the MDGs, a field story from an MFI, a poem, a podcast, a video clip, a jpg of a piece of art, a prayer, an open letter to your leaders, everybody is encouraged to blog about helping end poverty in our world.

For those of you who don’t know what the Millennium Development Goals are, here is a quick summary — at the Millennium Summit in September 2000 the largest gathering of world leaders in history adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, with a deadline of 2015, that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world’s time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They are also basic human rights-the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, and security.

1. Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
4. Reduce Child Mortality
5. Improve Maternal Health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development

In the US right now we are having a heated debate over who bears the burden of responsibility for the reckless loans that are now crippling our credit system. Is it the borrowers who should not have taken out loans larger than they could afford to repay? Or, is it the lenders who failed to properly vet borrowers?

Concern about overlending and other borrowing pitfalls is obviously on the mind of those attending the Clinton Global Initiative. In response a broad consortium of microfinance organizations have signed onto the Campaign for Client Protection in Microfinance. Accion, one of the signatories, describes the campaign:

Designed to maintain and extend the microfinance industry’s dedication to the welfare of its clients in a period of rapid growth, the campaign will promote a Microbanker’s Oath, akin to the Hippocratic Oath, articulating six core principles:

• Avoidance of reckless lending that creates over-indebtedness
• Transparent and fair pricing
• Collections practices that are not abusive or coercive
• Ethical standards for staff
• Recourse mechanisms for client problems
• Privacy of client data

For more information, check out: www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org

Before I start actively contributing to this blog, I thought I should quickly introduce myself…

My name is Michelle Grocke, I’m 24 years old and I just moved to Seattle a few months ago. I graduated from William Smith College in upstate New York with an economics and modern language degree in the Spring of ‘06. Immediately after my graduation I moved to Geneva, Switzerland and completed a research internship with the I.L.O.
(the UN specialized agency which seeks the promotion of social justice and internationally recognized human and labor rights).

While at the I.L.O., I edited a few working papers on microcredit and soon discovered how brilliant, how widely successful and how simple this method of eradicating poverty really is! I soon began to immerse myself into any and all literature I could find regarding microcredit - and knew that this was something that I wanted to become and stay involved in for the rest of my life.  Side note: If you have not already done so, you should read both Muhammad Yunus’ book Banker to the Poor, and Alex Counts’ book Small Loans, Big Dreams.

Not knowing exactly how to get involved with microcredit I decided to take a break, move to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and go skiing for two seasons - I thought maybe the crisp air and powder would provide some sort of clarity…

Well low and behold it finally did, and that is how I wound up here. After a mere four-day visit to Seattle I realized how involved and active everybody here was with not only microcredit, but with an abundant array of both domestic and global issues. In Jackson I almost always had to follow up “I’m going to Seattle to hopefully get a job working with Microcredit…” with “Oh, okay…well basically Microcredit is….” That’s not the case in Seattle.

In addition to looking for a job, I am currently continuing to educate myself with the ‘what’s new’ in the world of microcredit - and will be posting my findings on myKRO.org. Sorry, I realize this introduction wasn’t exactly short, but now at least you know a little about the newest contributor to myKRO.

microLINKS, a knowledge-sharing family of applications and tools designed to improve the impact of USAID microenterprise programs and activities, hosts a series of online conferences discussing issues around microfinance and microenterprise called Speaker’s Corner.  Speaker’s Corner brings together professionals and experts from microfinance to discuss resources, ideas, and opinions about various topics.  The next series is:

September 16-18 Speaker’s Corner: Outsourcing Options for Microfinance Institutions

 Outsourcing core banking systems may be a viable opportunity for smaller microfinance institutions to increase their efficiency and capacity. Hosted by Alice Liu, this Speaker’s Corner will focus on the concerns and opportunities related to outsourcing. Learn more and register today.

On the 21st and 22nd of October, the 2008 Microfinace and New Technology Summit will be held in New Delhi India.

Here is some information about this year’s Summit:

Summit Objectives:

• To raise awareness among the ICT companies of the untapped market in microfinance
• To increase knowledge about ICT solutions and their impact on the sector within the microfinance industry.
• To address the need for regulation enabling ICT use in microfinance.

Target audience:

• MFI’s and Microfinance Practitioners
• ICT Companies and Individuals
• Regulatory Authorities
• Donors and Public Agencies

If you are interested, here is the registration page.

CGAP has just opened their annual Microfinance Photo contest, with this years theme: Innovators and Entrepreneurs.  Microfinance has inspired people in third world countries to raise themselves out of poverty, now let them inspire us through some amazing photos. For those of you who are eager to start snapping away, here are the guidelines.

If anybody needs a little more motivation, here are some pictures that will make you want to pack up your things and go travel the world:

• 2007 photo contest
• 2006 photo contest

This video is 55 minutes long, but it’s well worth watching if you want to learn more about the impact of microfinance over the past 30 years, and about the future prospects of microfinance to help alleviate poverty.

When I was in college I was involved with multiple non-profit and charitable organizations, however, I unfortunately knew nothing at the time about microfinance.  Although microfinance has come a long way in the last three years, I feel like I missed out on getting started with microfinance back then.  This article in New America Media gives a brief description about various organizations that students can get involved with.   It is great to see that people at a young age are getting involved with microfinance.  If anybody out there is looking to get more involved with microfinance, I would check your college student activities building to see if your school has one of the many new microfinance organizations popping up.  If not, there is no better time to start one

One Hen is a book about microfinance that is based on true events. It follows the story of two African boys: Kojo, who receives a small loan to buy a hen, and Kwabena Darko, who today is one of the largest poultry farmers in West Africa. The book has gotten rave reviews, but what I like the best is that there is a website that accompanies the book.  The website offers an interactive way for children to learn about microfinance through various games, like quizzes, mazes and memory tests.  Additionally, the website shares stories about microfinance and even encourages children to get involved.

Facebook and Myspace are the two biggest social networking sites that people use.  Although Myspace started as the leader, Facebook is emerging as the Worldwide leader.  At first I thought it was just people in the US that used these sites, but after a recent trip to Southeast Asia, I found that people from all over the world are using Facebook.
My favorite application that Facebook has is CAUSES.  In Causes, you can join different organizations that support non-profit organziations across the World.  Recently, I have noticed that microfinance has started to emerge in the Causes application.  Here is a highlight of some of the microfinance causes that I found:
Microfinance Platforms:

• Kiva.org — Make a loan, change a life - With over 14,000 members and more than $13,000 in donations in the group, Kiva has done a great job of making microfinance a big presence in the social networking world.
• Microplace: Although far behind Kiva on the social networking scene, Microplace is fairly new, so we should hopefully see a big jump within this group as more people become aware of the things Microplace is doing.

MFIs:

• Peacework Microfinance for Education Fund - Provide Financial Capital for Students’ Education: A group started by three people from Arkansas US, this group supports the Peacework Development Fund
• U.S. Microfinance (ACCION): With 298 members and with the donations going to ACCION, this groups goal is “To improve the lives of low and moderate-income individuals in the United States by providing microloans and other financial services.”
• Microcredit and Microfinance: Economic Opportunity for All - The number 1 Facebook group under a microfinance keyword search with 656 members, this group was set up by members of RESULTS  with a strong goal to “reduce the number of people living on less than US$1 a day worldwide by granting small loans to start a business”

Other:

• Microfinance Alliance: Together, Working for Economic Opportunity - With 46 members, this groups goal is “To educate, inspire, and activate a passion for bettering the plight of the world’s poor through microfinance.”
• Bali Microfinance Initiative: With a more focused approach to a Facebook causes group, the Bali Microfinance Initiative, intended for launch in May 2008, focuses on using microfinance and education to fight global poverty, specifically in Indonesia.

I really think that Facebook has done a great job with these groups.  I know a lot of people who have joined specific causes just because their friends were in it.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that these people will become heavily involved in microfinance right away, but at least it will give them an introduction.

About Causes:

Facebook Platform presents an unprecedented opportunity to engage our generation, most of whom are on Facebook, in seizing the future and making a difference in the world around us. Our generation cares deeply, but the current system has alienated us. Causes provides the tools so that any Facebook user can leverage their network of real friends to effect positive change.