Organization Profile & Updates

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Overview
ACCION International is a private, nonprofit organization with the mission of giving people the financial tools they need - microenterprise loans, business training, and other financial services - to work their way out of poverty. A world pioneer in microfinance, ACCION was founded in 1961 and issued the first microloan in 1973 in Brazil. ACCION International's partner microfinance institutions today are providing loans as low as $100 to poor women and men entrepreneurs in 22 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and in the U.S. Since 1992, ACCION and its partners have disbursed $7.6 billion in microloans to more than 4.7 million borrowers, 65 percent of whom are women. Ninety-seven percent of these loans have been repaid. For the past two years, ACCION has been among 25 organizations awarded the Social Capitalist Award by Fast Company magazine for "using business excellence to engineer social change."

ACCION International acts as a manager or consultant to many regulated microfinance institutions around the world by providing services to microfinance institutions that then provide microloans to the ultimate clients. ACCION also provides assistance in operations management with the goal of helping microfinance institutions become more efficient. ACCION assists their partners with marketing, research, and technicalities of law, in addition to providing some funding to their partners.

Countries Served

Angola	Argentina	Benin	Guatemala
Nicaragua	United States	Bolivia	Haiti
Nigeria	Venezuela	Brazil	Honduras
Paraguay	Zimbabwe	Colombia	India
Peru	Ecuador	Mexico	Tanzania
El Salvador	Mozambique	Uganda

ACCION Partners:

The ACCION Story
ACCION began as an ordinary charitable organization that sought to improve the lives and communities of the people in Latin America. After ten years of service and aid to these people, they realized that if they wanted their work to be permanent, they would need to do something different. A few members of ACCION in Brazil one day noticed that the majority of the population made their living off of small businesses. The thought occurred to them that they could help these individuals through affordable, small loans. Then with these loans, the people could grow their businesses and improve their lives permanently.

The ACCION Philosophy
ACCION is focused on helping to alleviate poverty all over the world. Realizing that there will never be enough charitable contributions to eliminate poverty, they strive for financial stability.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Overview
ACCION New York provides microloans and business advisory services to individuals and small businesses that do not have access to traditional sources of credit in the New York metropolitan region. Historically, 95 percent of their borrowers are minorities, almost all immigrants, and 40 percent are women. One out of every five New Yorkers and one out of every three children lives below the poverty level. Because low wage employment is often unattractive (low pay, few benefits, little personal and financial growth) many of these New Yorkers begin businesses to support their families or to supplement their other sources of income. However, with no or poor credit history they are unable to access formal credit mechanisms.

Total Loans Made: 6,371
Total Amount Disbursed: $40,234,614

U.S. ACCION Network
ACCION New York is a fully independent non-profit and a member of the US ACCION Network. The U.S. ACCION Network operates in eight states and has provided over $110 million in microloans to over 16,000 borrowers since 1991.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Overview
BRAC provides and protects livelihoods of around 100 million people in Bangladesh. Diagnosing poverty in human terms and recognizing its multidimensional nature, BRAC approaches poverty alleviation with a holistic approach. BRAC's outreach covers all 64 districts of the country and, furthermore, has been called upon to assist a number of countries including Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

BRAC's comprehensive-development approach includes the following programs:

• Economic development
  
• Social development
  
• Human Rights and Legal Education Services
  
• Non-Formal Primary Education and Health
  

Economic development-BRAC Economic Development Program provides the cornerstone for all of BRAC's development work. This program covers microfinance, urban program, employment and income generation, program support enterprises.

Social development, Human Rights, and Legal Services-aims to promote greater awareness of social, political, and economic issues by providing information on strengthening women's socio-political assets, human rights and legal services, legal clinic aids, and popular theater.

Health-Facility-based services (Shushastho-BRAC Health Center, BRAC Limb and Brace Center), essential healthcare (Health and Nutrition, Water and Sanitation, Family Planning, Immunization, Pregnancy-Related Care, Basic Curative Services, Tuberculosis, Essential Health Care for Specially targeted Ultra Poor), partnership programs (nutrition, TB,) and new initiatives (HIV/AIDS program, Malaria prevention & control program, micro-health insurance, community-based arsenic mitigation project, early childhood development, saving newborn lives, public private partnership facilitation program)

Education-Non-Formal Primary Education Program began in 1985 with 22 one-room schools; by 2003 the program was operating more than 34,000 schools

Partners

• Global Partnership (GP)-higher education program
• Scojo-reading-glasses microfranchise
• Global Fund for Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS-National Tuberculosis Control Program
• Government of Bangladesh-health, education, and legal aid for deprived women and Children
• UN World Food Programme- Women Training and Production Center (WTPC)
• ICDDR,B -TB Control Program
• National Anti-Tuberculosis Association of Bangladesh-TB Control Program
• Damien Foundation-TB Control Program
• Urban Primary Health Care Project-TB Control Program
• RDRS-TB Control Program
• Lepra Bangladesh-TB Control Program
• Danish Bangladesh Leprosy Mission-TB Control Program
• HEED Bangladesh-TB Control Program
• Lamb Hospital-TB Control Program
• Salvation Army-TB Control Program
• World Bank-National Nutrition Program (NNP)
• Canadian-CIDA-National Nutrition Program (NNP)
• Dutch government-National Nutrition Program (NNP)
• UNICEF--National Nutrition Program (NNP), HIV/AIDS Program, Women Training and Production Center (WTPC)
• Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)-HIV/AIDS Program

In order to achieve its goal, wherever necessary, BRAC welcomes partnerships with the community, like-minded organizations, governmental institutions, the private sector, and development partners both at home and abroad. BRAC follows no rigid model but is constantly expanding and growing through experiential learning.

The BRAC Story
After the Liberation War in 1972 in Bangladesh, many refugees were homeless. Fazle Hasan Abed founded a donor-funded, small-scale relief and rehabilitation project to help resettle refugees returning from India. From these beginnings, BRAC recognized the importance of women as the primary caregivers, as the ones ensuring the education of their children and continuing sustainability of their families. In 1974, the first microcredit loan was given, and since then, BRAC has combined microfinance with health, education, and other social development programs to counter poverty. BRAC is now an independent, 77% self-sustaining organization, providing and protecting the livelihoods of 100 million of the 141 million people in Bangladesh.

Innovations

• Non-Formal Primary Education program
• 2001-founded BRAC University
• IGVGD, Income Generation for Vulnerable Group Development
• 2002-Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction-Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP)-targeting the bottom 25% of the absolute poorest

Recent BRAC Highlights
BRAC received the 2004 Gates Award for Global Health. Also, Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC founder and chairperson, was honored with the UNDP Mahbubul Huq Award for Outstanding Contribution in Human Development.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Mission

We are a social company committed to the people. We generate development opportunities within the lower economic segments, based on innovative and efficient models on a wide scale as well as transcending values that create external and internal culture, fulfilling permanent trusting relationships and contributing to a better world.

Background

During the late 80's microfinance started to be introduced in development and financial arenas as an effective tool to promote development.

Microfinance are financial services such as: credit for working capital, for consumption, housing improvement and saving and insurance plans provided for low-income segments.

In Mexico, just as in the rest of Latin America, the huge growth of the population, has exceeded the capability of companies to offer jobs, therefore, people have tried to perform productive activities, known as micro-business to have an income.

In 1990, Compartamos was founded within this context, thus providing opportunities and offering credit as a means to make micro businesses grow and to contribute with Mexico's development.

Through its history, Compartamos has obtained results with a clear trend aimed to sustainable growth, the quality of its assets, and profitability.

Today

Compartamos is a company governed by the Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores, Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, and Banco de México. Its credit quality has been rated by Standard & Poor's and by Fitch as A+; this has allowed them to enter the market by issuing bonds. Thus, Compartamos is the first microfinance company in the world to issue debt on the stock market with its own collateral, and become a financial intermediate between large investors and low- income groups.

On June 1st, 2006, Compartamos was authorized by the Mexican government to operate as a bank, "Banco Compartamos, S.A., Institución de Banca Múltiple".

Compartamos Client

We work with enterprising and responsible people who seek to forge a better future for their family, and who take advantage of credit as an opportunity to grow. Ninety eight percent of the Compartamos clients are women. The micro businesses that the clients run are small economic production, service, and trade units, which generally employ one or two members of the same family, which in many cases, are the main income source for the family economy.

Compartamos, through its clients, serves different economic activities (this allows to spread the credit risk), some of the most important are:

• Rural food trade
• Handicrafts and hand made products
• Other service and trade activities
• Commodities and garments
• Farming activities

Products

Compartamos offers financial services in rural and urban areas. Each type of loan has a methodology focused on analyzing the client's payment capacity in their current cash flows, so the loan recovery is based on the current performance and capacity of the microenterprises to be financed.

Compartamos offers 3 products to its clients:

1. Income Generators (IG's), for women in groups of 12 or more, with a solidarity guarantee. IG's has one attribute: Parallel Credit (a credit extension for women with a current credit in IG; guarantor with in the same IG group). And two additional benefits: Life Insurance free of charge for the client and 100% debt extinction in case of death.
2. Solidarity Group, for men and women, in groups of 3 to 8 people, with a solidarity guarantee. Additional benefit: 100% debit extinction in case of death.
3. Individual Credit, for men and women, with a pledge and personal guarantee. Additional benefit: 100% debit extinction in case of death.

Coverage

Compartamos has 235 branches in 29 states of Mexico.

Bond Issue

General Characteristics of the First Program

• July 2002
• US $20 m
• Maturity: three years
• No guarantee
• Standard and Poor's: mxA+
• Winner of the Sustainable Deal of the Year 2006 granted by The Financial Times

General Characteristics of the Second Program

• February 2004
• US $50 m
• Maturity: three years
• Guarantee 34% from IFC (International Finance Corporation)
• Standard and Poor's y Fitch México: mxAA
• Acknowledgment by Latin Finance Magazine as the "Deal of the year".

Recognitions and Awards

• 2005: Financial Transparency Award 2004 Winner, granted by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP).
• 2005: Award for Excellence in Microfinance in the category of regulated institutions granted by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
• 2005: Compartamos obtained 16th place in the Latin American list, and 6th place in the Mexican companies' list of Best Employers in Latin America, announced by Hewitt Associates, in partnership with AméricaEconomía.
• 2006: Compartamos was awarded 5th place in a list of the 60 Best Companies to Work for in Mexico, and 1st place in camaraderie in Latin America, presented by Great Place to Work® Institute Mexico together with Grupo Editorial Expansión.
• 2006: The Financial Times in association with International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, launched The Sustainable Banking Awards. The awards will be given in five categories (based on performance in 2005). Citigroup its Mexican arm Banamex and Compartamos won Sustainable Deal of the Year for the first peso-denominated investment grade bond issue to finance loans to micro-entrepreneurs in Mexico.
• 2007: Compartamos was awarded 5th. Place in the list of Best Companies to Work in Mexico, granted by Great Place to Work Institute.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Overview
Count Me In provides access to small business loans, business and credit consultation, and education to women who have a desire to either start their own business or grow their current business. Count Me In offers its services online and is the first online microlending business.

Partners:
Count-Me-In has several financial partners:

• American Express, Small Business Services
• Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts
• Oxygen
• 1-800-flowers.com
• ChristmasTree.com

The Count-Me-In Story
Nell Merlino and Iris Burnett, both with extensive backgrounds in women advocacy and other leadership roles, realized that women were becoming an ever-increasing part of the workforce. However, they also realized that women were often shut out of opportunities afforded to men. In order to give women a better chance at starting and growing their own businesses, Merlino and Burnett established the first online microlending service.

Online Microlending
Online microcredit is a new niche that Count-Me-In is filling. By creating a microlending service online, women can have a better chance of obtaining a small loan-both due to their Count-Me-In's services as well as their extended reach on the internet.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Services
FINCA offers small credit loans, larger individual loans, savings deposit accounts, health and life insurance products, health care, and business-interruption coverage.

FINCA is the pioneer of the village banking method of microcredit where putting the poor in charge of their own bank is the founding philosophy. The level of autonomy that FINCA gives to its borrowers is a unique feature of FINCA. The results among FINCA's borrowers are increased earnings, better family nutrition, high repayment rates, and increased empowerment-results that have been replicated over and over again in the poorest areas of the developing world. Believing that his village banking invention belonged not to himself, but to the world's poor, John Hatch has eagerly taught his methodology to hundreds of organizations and individuals.

Countries Served

Clients Served
Percentage of clients who are the "poorest of the poor":

Overall: 45%
Africa: 75%
Latin America: 45%
NIS: 15%

FINCA employs approximately 3,000 (2,000 are credit officers) worldwide. About 99% of the 3,000 employees are host-country nationals (local citizens). Of these host-country nationals, about half are the young-adult-age children of FINCA clients. In some countries, FINCA is the largest career path for daughters of impoverished families.

The FINCA Story
John Hatch had worked on international development projects throughout the world and had grown increasingly frustrated with government programs' failure to involve the people they hoped to benefit. In 1984 John was in an airplane high above the Andes, en route to a consultant assignment in Bolivia, when inspiration struck. He grabbed in-flight cocktail napkins, scraps of paper, and a pen and began writing down ideas, equations, and flow charts as fast as he could. By the time he landed in La Paz, he had the outline of a radically different approach to poverty alleviation: a financial services program that put the poor in charge. Believing that the poor lacked neither ambition nor skill, but simply resources, John developed a philosophy he has yet to abandon: "Give poor communities the opportunity, and then get out of the way!" This spirit created what became known as the village banking method. This approach gave the poor the opportunity to obtain loans without collateral-the poor's main obstacle to accessing credit—at interest rates they could afford. But perhaps most important, it gave them control: the power to collectively disburse, invest and collect loan capital as they saw fit.

John first had to convince a group of USAID officers that his epiphany would pay off—for the rural poor and the government of the United States, whose grant dollars would fund the first projects. Remarkably, the officials liked his innovative idea and provided an initial grant of $1 million. John and his Peruvian business partner, Aquiles Lanoa, launched the program in five separate geographical areas of Bolivia and within four weeks, they had created funds in 280 villages serving 14,000 families with loans worth $630,000. John's clients in Bolivia were puzzled at first by village banking because it represented a significant departure from business as usual. They were intrigued enough to try it, however, and it was an immediate success. When John's client in Bolivia changed its in-country team, the new representatives shut the program down. More cautious than the original client team, the new group acknowledged the program's success but still felt that un-collateralized lending to very poor people was too risky. Undeterred, John spent the next few months training others in the village banking methodology, helping open new programs throughout Latin America, and building the institution that would come to be known as FINCA International. FINCA incorporated in 1985.

Innovations
While the original village bank credit and savings program remains the core product in the African programs, FINCA has partnered with leading insurance companies to offer health and life insurance products, health care, and business-interruption coverage in response to the AIDS crisis occurring in Africa.

In the Newly Independent States (countries of the former USSR), FINCA's product offerings have expanded to include larger, individual loans, collateralized by office or specialized equipment, vehicles, or property.

Three of FINCA's most successful programs, Ecuador, Uganda, and Kyrgyzstan have transformed into regulated deposit-taking institutions (MDIs). MDIs can accept savings from the public and then lend those savings to fuel much faster program outreach.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Services
The Grameen Bank provides small loans to women and the poorest of the poor to provide capital for their microbusinesses. In addition, loans are available for other activities such as purchasing homes, improving homes and property, leasing, and higher education. The Grameen Bank serves the country of Bangladesh in 18 zones, as displayed in the following map.

The Grameen Family
Over two dozen nonprofit and for-profit businesses make up the Grameen Family. Collectively, they exist to alleviate poverty in Bangladesh. The Village Phone project is an example of a high profile activity taken on by parts of the Grameen Family and has been written up in a number of newspapers and magazines. In this case Grameen Phone, a for-profit organization in the Grameen Family, is 35% owned by the Grameen Telecom, a nonprofit organization in the family. The Grameen Bank, a for-profit organization in the family, provides a loan to a "village phone lady" who sells minutes on her Grameen Phone cell phone to neighbors-acting like the village pay phone since land line phones are rarely available. This turnkey microbusiness is very successful due to the reduced costs for people to use the phone to contact family members or investigate spot prices of produce/product that they raise and sell.

Other Grameen Family organizations include some of the following:

• Grameen Telecom- Dedicated to extending benefits of information revolution to rural people of Bangledesh, Grameen Telecom provides cell phones and telecommunication services to 100 million rural inhabitants.
• Grameen Fund- Provides risk capital for ventures that promise good return on equity investments, as well as direct and indirect benefits to rural poor
• Grameen Technology- A not-for-profit information technology company that provides complete systems solutions for even the most novice users. Dedicated to developing IT products for the rural poor, they also provide systems for ASHI in Philippines and CFTS in India.
• Grameen Shakti- Since 70% of the Bangladesh population is deprived of conventional energy, Grameen Shakti was created in 1996 to develop energy-renewable products such as solar-energy systems and wind energy.
• Grameen Shikkha- A special program created in 1996 to educate Grameen members and their children.
• Grameen Knitwear Limited- A knitwear factory that exports 100% of it products to Europe.
• Grameen Cybernet Ltd- Created in 1996, Grameen Cybernet Ltd. is now Bangladesh's leader in Internet services.
• Grameen Trust- Features dialogue, workshops, and training for any interested organizations or individuals.

The Grameen Story
In the mid-1970s Professor Muhammad Yunus returned to Bangladesh to teach at Chittagong University after receiving a PhD in economics in the United States. He returned to a newly independent country devastated by war that was trying to deal with a multitude of economic problems. It was not long before Professor Yunus realized that the economic theories and practices he learned were useless in dealing with the abject poverty he saw every day as he commuted to and from his college office. He and some students started an action research project and interviewed 42 impoverished women and found that they were all hardworking people who were paying outrageous fees to suppliers because they could not pay in cash. The suppliers made money, but each of the women had very little money left after paying their suppliers back, or selling their products through them. Adding up the various capital requirements for all 42 of the women, Yunus found out that US$27 was all that was required for these women to be able to purchase their usual supplies directly and bypass the creditors. He gave each of the woman the small amount of money needed, and within weeks was paid back-and each of the women had enough profit to continue to directly purchase their supplies-instantly making more profit than they ever had before.

This was the start of the first Grameen Bank (Bangla for Village Bank) focused on the following objectives:

• Extend banking facilities to poor men and women
• Eliminate the exploitation of the poor by money lenders
• Create opportunities for self-employment for the vast multitude of unemployed people in rural Bangladesh
• Bring the disadvantaged, mostly the women from the poorest households, within the fold of an organizational format which they can understand and manage by themselves
• Reverse the age-old vicious circle of "low income, low saving & low investment," into a virtuous circle of "low income, injection of credit, investment, more income, more savings, more investment, more income."

The action research demonstrated its strength in Jobra (a village adjacent to Chittagong University) and some of the neighboring villages during 1976-1979. With the sponsorship of the central bank of the country and support of the nationalized commercial banks, the project was extended to Tangail district (a district north of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh) in 1979. With the success in Tangail, the project was extended to several other districts in the country. In October 1983, the Grameen Bank Project was transformed into an independent bank by government legislation. Today Grameen Bank is owned by the rural poor whom it serves. Borrowers of the Bank own 90% of its shares, while the remaining 10% is owned by the government

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Overview

Grameen Foundation USA (GFUSA) is a dynamic, nonprofit organization that was started with a challenge from Muhammad Yunus (Grameen Bank founder) to spread microcredit around the globe. In order to meet that challenge the Grameen Foundation USA provides funding, technology, technical assistance, training and information services to microfinance institutions that then become part of their network. These partners then provide microloans and other financial services their microentrepreneurs. This global network of microfinance partners has already reached nearly 1.2 million families in 20 countries.

As an intermediary, GFUSA develops and executes pioneering programs and technology-based solutions to increase the capacity and efficiency of the microfinance industry so it can reach even more of the world's poorest people. They also develop technology based communications microbusinesses. These businesses provide income for a microentrepreneur, and they provide the rural poor and their villages with expanded means of communication and access to vital information.

Grameen Foundation USA serves the following 22 countries:

United States	Tanzania
Mexico	Pakistan
El Salvador	India
Honduras	Bangladesh
Nicaragua	Malaysia
Haiti	South Korea
Dominican Republic	China
Egypt	Philippines
Nigeria	Indonesia
Uganda	East Timor

Africa	LAPO (Nigeria), MCDF, Jecy Devel. Fund (Tanzania-Grameen Trust)
East Asia	TSPI, CARD, NWTF (Philippines), FPC (China), MKEJ (Indonesia), Moris Rasik (East Timor), 14 Grameen Trust partnerships
Latin America/ Caribbean	Bank Fonkoze (Haiti), AlSol (Mexico), Centeotl, Gr. de la Frontera (Mexico); Las Melidas (El Salvador), Adelante (Honduras); Esperanza (Dominican Republic)
Middle East/ North Africa	RADE, Al-Tadamun (Egypt), FONDEP (Morocco)
South Asia	ASA, CASHPOR, SHARE, SKS (India), IDF (Bangladesh) Kashf (Pakistan), SNEHA, Grameen Koota (India)
USA	Project Enterprise NYC, PLAN Fund Dallas

The Grameen Story

GFUSA sprang from a rich heritage and maintains an enduring relationship with the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. Grameen Bank was started in 1976 by Alex Counts, the author of the book Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus' Microlending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago, written in 1996 about Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. Counts wrote the book after visiting Bangladesh as a Fulbright Scholar and later just before launching GFUSA.

The Grameen Foundation USA operates in a unique niche by helping to replicate the Grameen Bank's success through its strategic partners by helping them acquire the necessary resources to provide the best products and services to their respective microenterprise clients.

Innovations

GFUSA is one of the leaders at the forefront for using technology, capital market funding strategies, and other pioneering initiatives in the global fight against poverty. Their Grameen Technology Center focuses on developing breakthrough applications for information and communications technology to enhance the entire microfinance industry. One great success is the Village Phone program which connects villagers in remote areas to information about market prices for their agricultural goods, government services, health care, and family members.

The GFUSA Capital Markets Group develops and manages GFUSA branded financing products that are simple, flexible, with varied risk-return profiles, and aims to establish microfinance as an asset class by negotiating and executing capital markets opportunities, thereby increasing MFIs' access to financing to server greater numbers of microfinance clients.

They are also increasing MFI efficiency by setting up management information systems that enable them to provide more client services, and through our Mifos project, we are also developing a universal, flexible management information system to help MFIs standardize operations and process very large numbers of microloans and other financial services. In addition, they are creating a new tool to help MFIs track the progress of their clients - from their first loan to their final step out of poverty.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Services
HELP International currently provides services to the poor men, women, and children of El Salvador and Guatemala. At its creation, HELP began distributing microloans to the poor in 1999 and 2000 in hurricane-ravaged Honduras through its partner FINCA International as well as through its own microcredit organization, Acción Contra la Pobreza (Action Against Poverty). Since then, rather than provide loans itself, HELP has been involved with various microfinance institutions, providing managerial and organizational assistance, as well as providing business training classes to microloan recipients. In addition, HELP is providing other forms of humanitarian assistance to the poor through English classes, nutrition and gardening classes, and other life-improvement training and assistance. All HELP work is provided by volunteers, generally university students, who spend their summers providing these services to the people of Latin America.

Countries Served
Brazil: 2003
El Salvador: 2000 - present
Guatemala: 2002 - present
Honduras: 1999 - 2001
Peru: 2000 - 2001
Venezuela: 2000

Partners
El Salvador:

ASEI - (Associacion Salvadorena de Exensionistas Empresariales) provides microloans to small businesses and the self-employed poor. They also provide technical assistance to already-established businesses. HELP International provides business training to loan recipients.
ALPIMED - (Alianza para el Desarrollo de la Microempresa) acts as an advocate for 10 microfinance institutions by disseminating information on microfinance, aiding institutions in organizational research, and providing them with new information.

Guatemala:

SHARE Guatemala distributes microcredit loans to the poor, as well as provides other life improvement services. HELP International provides basic business training to these loan recipients.

Honduras:

FINCA - In 1999, HELP International partnered with FINCA in providing funding and microcredit loans to the poor of Honduras.

Peru:

Chasqui Humanitarian - HELP partnered with Chasqui to provide business services to people in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. "Chasqui Humanitarian's small-business training classes include subjects such as business planning, marketing research, advertising and promotion, inventory control, accounting, licensing, taxation, goal setting, and problem solving." Using as a basis these business lessons created by Chasqui, HELP has taught numerous business classes to blooming microentrepreneurs throughout Central and South America.

Venezuela:

PROESA 21- This local organization gave out microloans to villagers in conjunction with HELP International.

The HELP Story

In 1999, a group of college students, led by Warner Woodworth and Lisa Jones, took action in helping to rebuild the Hurricane Mitch-ravaged country of Honduras. After a summer of building homes and infrastructure and distributing microloans to the poor, the students decided to make their service an annual event. Every summer since 1999, individuals have traveled to South and Central America to improve the lives of the indigent.

Innovations
Although they are no longer a microcredit lender, HELP supports organizations that do offer microloans by training loan recipients in money handling and business basics. HELP also provides organizational training and assistance to the employees of the institutions.

HELP International has brought business techniques, developed through hands-on situations, to the microcredit institutions with whom they partner. They created Trading Up: The Micro-Credit Game, a game used to teach clients how to use basic business skills in a microcredit setting. HELP volunteers also teach Business Simulation, formerly known as the Best Game™ by Making Cents™.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Overview
Mibanco offers many types of traditional financial services for low-income people. Among these services it offers loans, credit cards for micro businesses, ATMs, online banking, money transfers nationally and abroad, and all financial services at a network of Mibanco branches.

The following table gives an overview of the loan services offered by Mibanco for the last five years.

Year	Active Portfolio	Amount Disbursed	Active Clients	Average Loan Balance	% of Women Clients
2000	$36,925,607	$83,764,363	58,088	$636	58%
2001	$61,330,000	$106,542,000	77,942	$787	57%
2002	$92,294,000	$153,400,000	99,121	$931	55%
2003	$114,119,000	$114,119,000	120,830	$944	64%
2004	$110,956,000	$79,902,460	113,604	$977	55%

As depicted in the following bar chart, the average loan size is quite small-the majority of loans under $1,000.

Services
Mibanco is a private commercial bank that began as a non-governmental organization (NGO) set up to change socio-economic conditions. Because of senior management's vision, microfinance products and services were introduced to low-income clients in 1969. At present, services are offered through a fully integrated operation to both rural and urban clients. Mibanco provides the following services to its low-income, entrepreneurial clients:

• Installment loans
• Working capital loans
• Start-up loans
• Financial advice
• Lines of credit
• Passbook savings
• Term deposits
• Group savings
• Remittances
• Exchange

The Mibanco Story
In 1969, ACCION International assisted in founding Mibanco's predecessor, Acción Comunitaria del Perú (ACP) as a private, nonprofit community development organization. In 1982, with the backing of Banco Wiese, one of the largest banks in Peru, ACP began microlending in the southern section of metropolitan Lima. At present, services are offered through a fully integrated operation to both rural and urban clients.

In May 1998, ACP became the majority shareholder and operative manager of a new venture called Mibanco (Banco de la Microempresa S.A.), Peru's first for-profit, fully-regulated commercial bank dedicated to microenterprise. Mibanco's initial $16 million in capital came entirely from the private sector. Sixty percent came from ACP's client base and loan portfolio. Other investors included ProFund, the ACCION Gateway Fund, Banco Wiese Sudameris, Banco de Crédito del Perú. In November 1999, the Corporación Andina de Fomento became a shareholder of Mibanco. The nonprofit ACP continues to offer non-financial social services

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Services
The Microcredit Summit (MCS) is an umbrella organization that supports activities to share best practices among microfinance institutions (MFIs) throughout the world. These activities include summits, regional conferences, publications, research, and data collection. They receive data from MFIs involved with them in order to obtain cumulative data on the microcredit industry itself. The MCS is the first clearinghouse for all MFI reports and information worldwide.

MFIs that reported to the Microcredit Summit-Summer 2003:

919       Africa
1,603     Asia
261       Latin America and the Caribbean
48        North America
70        Europe and the Newly Independent States
30        Middle East
2,931     Total Institutions

• These 2,931 institutions represent 80,868,343 clients with a current loan.
  (For a complete list of institutions, please see the State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report 2004.)
• Percentage of clients who are women
  82.5 percent (45.2 million)
• Percentage of clients who are "poorest of the poor"
  68 percent (54.8 million)

Year	Number of Programs Reporting	Total Number of clients reached	Number of "poorest" clients reported	Percent "poorest"
1997	618 institutions	13,478,797	7,600,000	56%
1998	925 institutions	20,938,899	12,221,918	58%
1999	1,065 institutions	23,555,689	13,779,872	58%
2000	1,567 institutions	30,681,107	19,327,451	63%
2001	2,186 institutions	54,932,235	26,878,332	49%
2002	2,572 institutions	67,606,080	41,594,778	62%
2003	2,931 institutions	80,868,343	54,785,433	68%

The core themes of the Campaign are:

• Reaching the poorest
• Reaching and empowering women
• Building financially self-sufficient institutions
• Ensuring a positive, measurable impact on the lives of clients and their families

The Summit acts as an information source for practitioners to gain expertise. They offer best-practice guides based on Summit Sessions where leaders in microcredit, government, business, banking, and the non-profit sector participate as panelists.

The following guides are available for free on the Microcredit Summit Campaign website:

• Ensuring Loan Repayment
• Moving Toward Institutional Sustainability
• Targeting the Poorest and Covering the Costs
• Sustainability in Industrialized Countries
• Empowering Women
• Summit Campaign Establishes Poverty Measurement Tool Kit
• Measuring Impact on the Lives of Clients
• Mobilizing Savings and Ensuring Their Safe Use
• Recruiting, Training, and Retaining Excellent Staff

These guides are offered to practitioners, government leaders, bankers, or anyone who is interested in learning more about microcredit.

The Microcredit Summit Story
The Microcredit Summit Campaign was founded by Sam Daley-Harris as a project of the RESULTS Education Fund. The RESULTS organization had been focusing on microcredit as one of its favored tools for eradicating poverty and its accompanying complications. In the 1990s as microcredit initiatives grew around the world Daley-Harris and associates recognized the need to provide a venue for all MFIs around the world to share and collaborate better.

The Microcredit Summit was held February 2-4, 1997. At the Summit more than 2,900 people from 137 countries gathered in Washington, DC. They launched a nine-year campaign to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families, especially the women of those families, with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the year 2005. The Microcredit Summit Campaign brings together microcredit practitioners, advocates, educational institutions, donor agencies, international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations, and others involved with microcredit to promote best practices in the field, to learn from each other, and to work towards reaching the Summit goal.

In November of 2002, more than 2000 delegates from 100 countries gathered at the Microcredit Summit +5 in New York City. The Microcredit Summit offered an opportunity for microcredit practitioners, advocates, donors, and others committed to the Summit's goal to assess progress, identify challenges, and reaffirm their commitment to the nine-year campaign (1997-2005). They came out of the Summit with a commitment to the goal set in 1997 to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families.

The Global Microcredit Summit 2006 will be held from November 12-15, 2006 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. A second phase of the campaign will be kicked off that event with two new goals:

1. Working to ensure that 175 million of the world's poorest families, especially the women of those families, are receiving credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the end of 2015.
2. Working to ensure that 100 million of the world's poorest families move from below US$1 a day adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) to above US$1 a day adjusted for PPP by the end of 2015.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Services

Pro Mujer provides Latin America's poorest women with the means to build livelihoods for themselves and futures for their families through microfinance, business training, and healthcare support. The organizations numerous services can be divided up into different categories:

Financial Services:

Key to Pro Mujer's financial services are: Loans, Voluntary Savings and Traning and Consulting. Pro Mujer provides women with working capital loans ranging from US$50 to $1,500 with a term of four to six months. The average loan is approximately US$236 Women who repay their loans on time qualify for larger loans. Pro Mujer also offers loans for short term credit needs, and loans to pay for education and healthcare. It is developing special loans for youths, rural populations, successful entrepreneurs in need of larger loans, and clients seeking credit to make improvements to their homes.

Business Development Training:

Before extending a loan, Pro Mujer shows women how to develop a simple business plan, a tool to help them make the best use of credit. After getting a loan, clients meet periodically with members of their solidarity group to make loan payments. Pro Mujer uses these meetings and other workshops to teach women business skills. Women learn, among other things, about setting the price of goods to be sold, how to monitor income and expenses, and how to assess and navigate the competition.

Health Care and Support Training:

For these reasons, Pro Mujer has pioneered an approach that integrates health care and financial services, providing information and services that help clients stay healthy and run their businesses. Pro Mujer offers both health care and financial services from neighborhood centers, which clients visit regularly to make loan payments, attend workshops, and get advice from their peers. Its physicians, nurses and trainers provide basic health education during times set aside before and after repayment meetings to discuss nutrition, hygiene, pre-and post-natal care, family planning and other reproductive health topics. Conveniently, clients access health care and business support in one place. To provide health care support, Pro Mujer operates clinics or partners with other health care providers. This often depends on local needs and health infrastructure.

Empowerment Training:

Pro Mujer encourages women to develop their full potential, claim their basic human rights, and access services and resources in their communities. Pro Mujer uses a holistic approach, making sure that clients are better prepared physically, emotionally and economically to improve their lives and that of their children.

Clients Serving

Pro Mujer targets poor women, ranging in age from 18 to 67 who often have around 4-6 children and work as single parents to support their families. A majority of these women also lack the education and skills they need to qualify for employment or to access credit. They face discrimination and cultural barriers simply because of their gender. Most of the women work in the informal sector as vendors because they do not have any other alternative. Pro Mujer clients engage in small income-generating activities such as food processing, shopkeeping, service provision, street vending, sewing and weaving, among others. Specifically, Pro Mujer targets women in the following countries:

• Argentina
• Bolivia
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Peru

Gross Loan Portfolio

Argentina	$721,000
Bolivia	$22,929,000
Mexico	$5,451,000
Nicaragua	$4,308,000
Peru	$10,108,000

The Pro Mujer Story

Lynne R. Patterson, an American schoolteacher, and Carmen Velasco, a Bolivian child psychologist, wanted to help the poorest women in Bolivia achieve economic and social wellbeing. A U.S. government grant helped Lynne and Carmen get started — they met women in houses and courtyards and provided them with empowerment training, financial planning, and childhood education.

In 1990, Lynne and Carmen founded Pro Mujer, a microfinance network that offers credit, access to saving accounts, healthcare, and training to poor women entrepreneurs in Latin America.

Lynne and Carmen modeled Pro Mujer after Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, an organization with a well-tested group-based microfinance methodology that shows access to capital as the key for stabilizing women's businesses and creating a more financially secure future for them and their families.

Pro Mujer developed its sustainable integrated credit and training methodology in Bolivia in 1990; and successfully replicated the model in Nicaragua in 1996, Peru in 1999, Mexico in 2001 and Argentina in 2005. The services provided by each Pro Mujer have been modified to fit each country’s economic and cultural conditions.

In the past eighteen years the foundation’s microfinance institutions have disbursed over US$488 million in small loans, and have provided healthcare to hundreds of thousands of women and their families. Surpassing Lynne and Carmen’s vision, Pro Mujer is helping some of the poorest women in Latin America to increase their income, develop their full potential, and claim their basic human rights.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Services

SKS offers the following services to its clients (women and their families who are living in poverty):

• Preschool education/health/nutrition
• Savings-both compulsory group accounts (Group amount of Rupees 5 per week=$.12/wk) and voluntary individual accounts
• Loans-income-generating, mid-term, group fund, and emergency loans
• Insurance-focused on the rural sector; to be completed by the end of 2005

Overview

Heads		Mar-04	Mar-05	Jun-05
Total Branches		11	26	29
Total Sangams (Centers)		928	2,518	2,940
Total Clients		30,763	86,869	101,085
Total Loan Clients		24,800	73,635	87,050
Total Loans Outstanding	USD	2,691,744	7,696,793	9,184,595
	Rupees	116,821,680	335,580,180	399,621,748
Average Loan Outstanding per Loan Client	USD	109	104.5	105.5
	Rupees	4,711	4,557	4,591
Portfolio-At-Risk > 30 Days (%) [2]		0.0%	5.0%	3.89%
Total Savings	USD	191,207	267,683	295,262
	Rupees	8,298,398	11,670,997	12,846,836
Average Savings per Client	USD	6.2	3.1	3
	Rupees	270	134	127
Total Assets	USD	4,042,091	9,081,185	10,535,889
	Rupees	175,426,744	395,939,671	458,416,538
Total Equity	USD	N/A	100,457	253,440
	Rupees	N/A	4,379,912	11,027,208
Operating Self-Sufficiency (OSS) [3]		99.7%	103%	139%
Administrative Efficiency[4](annualized)		17.5%	13.7%	10.06%
Clients per Field Staff		277	460	498

Regarding the above table:

1. Figures for the year March 2004 were converted at a rate of 43.4 rupees per US$, for March 2005 @ 43.6 rupees per US$ and for June 2005 is @ 43.5 rupees per US$.
2. Portfolio-At-Risk percentage represents the remaining outstanding balance of loans with arrears > 30 days as a percentage of total loans outstanding.
3. OSS indicates the percentage of total actual operating costs (admin, loan loss provision, and interest) that is covered by income from operations (e.g., income earned on the loan portfolio). When SKS reaches 100%, this is its break even for the organization.
4. Administrative Efficiency measures how much it costs to keep a dollar outstanding in the hands of our clients.

Partners

SKS works with the following partners:

• FWWB-Training Programs for staff
• CGAP-PPIC and ABC exercise
• i 2 Foundation-SKS pre-school education-health-nutrition program
• Digital Partners-Smart Card Project
• Grameen Foundation-Smart Card Project
• Sadhan-a national association of community development financial institutions
• Unitus

The SKS Story

Vikram Akula, who grew up in Schenectady, upstate New York, encountered poverty first hand while visiting relatives in Medhak. The year that Akula spent in Zaheerabad transformed him forever. He returned to India in 1994 on a Fulbright Scholarship and established SKS in 1998 in hopes that he could play a small role in alleviating the destitution that his people in India faced.

SKS currently operates in one of the poorest parts of India, the Medak, Nalgonda and Nizamabad Districts of the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. The region is part of the drought-prone, semi-arid Deccan plateau. SKS selected the region for start-up activities because more than half of its people live in abject poverty. The region is plagued by high rates of hunger, illiteracy, disease, and bonded labor. The vast majority of poor are landless laborers or marginal farmers who draw their livelihood from subsistence agriculture. Their plight is worsened by frequent drought, severe deforestation, and soil erosion.

The SKS mission is to empower the poor to become self-reliant. SKS seeks to alleviate poverty through the provision of small, affordable loans for emergency needs, income-generating activities, and more.

SKS hopes to reach 300,000 families in the Telangana region by 2008. Long-term goals include expansion towards two of India's poorest districts in the neighboring states, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Innovations

One SKS innovation is the Smart Card Project. SKS believes the Smart Card Project will revolutionize microfinance by overcoming a major problem for microfinance institutions (MFIs)-the high cost of delivering financial services to the doorstep of the poor. It will do so by using Smart Cards to reduce the time of weekly village meetings, thereby significantly increasing the efficiency of field staff, lowering costs of delivery, and enabling MFIs that target the poor to more quickly reach financial viability.

All MFIs face the problem of the high cost of delivery, but the problem is especially acute for MFIs that target the poorest of the poor because such MFIs typically work in remote, sparsely-populated regions where roads are not well developed. Therefore travel costs become prohibitive. Moreover, given the severe poverty of their clients, such MFIs typically have lower average loan portfolios, thus it takes longer to reach financial sustainability. Smart Cards will solve that problem.

SKS has always thought about alleviating poverty on a large scale. SKS realized early on that they needed the ability to track thousands (and someday hundreds of thousands) of microfinance loans. To that end, SKS designed a simple-to-operate, in-house Management Information System. An explanation of this MIS follows:

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Services
Unitus's mission is to decrease poverty by increasing access to microfinance. Unitus selects high-potential microfinance institutions (MFIs) and dramatically accelerates their growth through capital investments and capacity-building consulting. By scaling up the growth of MFIs, Unitus helps exponentially more poor people gain access to microfinance services.

Locations
Argentina
India
Kenya
Mexico

Clients

In measuring how many clients are considered "the poorest of the poor," Unitus looks at the maximum first-loan size as the best single data point to show that their partners are serving the poor in their own local area. The following data shows the maximum first-loan size for each partner organization.

Maximum First Loan Size

ASA-GV: $70
Bandhan: $69
BSS: $111
Grameen Koota: $106
Jamii Bora Trust: $105
Pro Mujer Mexico: $135
SKS: $233
Average for all Unitus partners: $118

Partners

Unitus has partnerships with nine Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), including six in India (ASA-GV, Bandhan, BSS, Grameen Koota, SKS, and Ujjivan), one in Argentina (FIS), one in Kenya (Jamii Bora), and one in Mexico (Pro Mujer Mexico). Unitus also has a strategic alliance with Unitus-Accion Alliance for India.

The following gives a profile of each partner:

Unitus-ACCION Alliance for India
Unitus and ACCION International, a private, nonprofit organization with the mission of giving people the financial tools they need to work way out of poverty, have created the Unitus-ACCION Alliance for India. This strategic partnership, thought to be the first of its kind, is designed to catalyze the creation of a large-scale and profitable microfinance industry in India. The alliance has established as its goal the delivery of microfinance services to 15 million of India's under-privileged by 2015.

The Unitus Story

In early 2000, a group of friends met to discuss how they could alleviate poverty, thus sowing the seeds that would later become Unitus. They discussed various economic development methodologies including education, microcredit and cooperatives. These initial discussions led to the formation of Unitus Action Groups, where individuals brought friends, family, co-workers or neighbors together to unite their efforts in fighting poverty. Much good came from these Unitus Action Groups. Sizable donations were made to worthy NGOs and projects were engaged in worldwide. But for all their successes, the founders were still not convinced that they were on the road to massive poverty alleviation.

In the context of this self-evaluation, they traveled to Bangladesh in January 2001 to learn about the Grameen Bank and meet with Muhammad Yunus, Grameen's founder. The trip changed their lives and left them convinced that microcredit was the key to large-scale poverty alleviation. But a question still remained - How could Unitus best leverage microcredit? Thousands of microcredit institutions (MFIs) already existed. And could Unitus really reach scale quickly if they were constrained by building a field support organization from scratch? Wouldn't they just be duplicating and overlapping efforts if they created one of their own?

With some advice from Muhammad Yunus, they veered in a new direction and began researching in depth the microfinance industry - its successes, failures, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. After months of study and industry evaluation, a new strategy was developed for Unitus - one which truly could eliminate poverty for millions of people - The Unitus Acceleration Model. Many of those founding friends are still Unitus board members and remain as committed as ever to alleviating worldwide poverty on a massive scale

Innovations

Unitus Acceleration Model: Unitus has developed a new way to accelerate the growth of microfinance institutions (MFIs) worldwide. Focused on exponential institutional growth, Unitus carefully selects the highest-potential MFIs operating in developing countries and provides both capital and capacity-building consulting while connecting these MFIs to capital markets. This innovative approach exponentially increases the number of loans an existing MFI can make, thus empowering significantly more families to work their way out of poverty.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Overview

Visayas Enterprise Foundation (VEF) is one of the three partner foundations affiliated with Enterprise Mentors International in the Philippines. VEF's focuses on providing business training, consulting, and microloan services. VEF is overseen by a local board of directors comprised of successful businessmen, entrepreneurs, and community leaders.

Services

VEF offers its services to members of its Grameen Replication Program (KAABAG: "Helping One Another"), whose members are mainly women (97%). They utilize poverty measurement tools to ensure that all participants are among the "poorest." The following is a list of services offered:

• Loans
• Trainings on: Grameen Methodology, Leadership, and Simple Record Keeping
• Mutual Aid Benefit (Micro-insurance) in case of death or sickness
• Marketing Assistance

Partners

VEF is a member of the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, Inc. (MCPI) and of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Council of Practitioners.

MCPI provides trainings of various types to its members, which helps to ensure compliance with local government regulations. VEF also works closely with its sister foundations in the Philippines: PMDF (Philippines Microenterprise Development Foundation), MEDF (Mindanao Enterprise Development Foundation), and its parent foundation EMI.

The VEF Story

In 1991 a group of businessmen, successful entrepreneurs, and community leaders, with the support of EMI, joined efforts to form an organization that would support very poor families of the local community. These efforts were focused on improving families' business practices and, consequently, improving their quality of life (nutrition, education, housing, sanitation, etc.).

By 1991, the Grameen Program of Dr. Muhammad Yunus was known worldwide to have helped the very poor in Bangladesh. This impressive program was later replicated in many parts of the world including the Philippines.

VEF, PMDF, and MEDF were determined to reach the poorest among the poor by replicating the Microcredit Grameen program in the Philippines. In 1998, after the Executive Director Tony Mausisa had visited Bangladesh and learned the Microcredit Grameen program, VEF started implementing a replication of the program.

[ View Profile ]

[ Collapse Profile ]

Overview
Yehu = "Our" in Swahili. Yehu is a microfinance organization in the rural coastal region of Kenya. It provides financial and other support services for small businesses owned by the very poor living there, which can be used to start or expand their small businesses. It operates as part of Choice Humanitarian. It was created based on the principles and procedures of the world-renowned Grameen Bank.

Services

How Does It Work?
Five people form a group and join an existing Yehu centre. The group meets weekly in their village with several other groups and a Yehu worker. Each member contributes a small amount of savings for six months. After successfully saving for six months, a small loan is made to one member of the group. Money is loaned at a market interest rate. Loans are repaid on a weekly basis over a 6-month term.

Social Collateral
Though a loan is made to an individual in the group, the entire group is responsible to repay the loan. The group encourages solidarity among members who effectively co-guarantee each other's loans. Loan amounts are small and the members have incentive to pay them back to be eligible to receive a larger loan and for other members of the group to receive their loan.

Financial Structure
In the early years of high growth, Yehu continues to be dependent on private donations to fund day-to-day operations. While this will continue for several more years, Yehu is on the path to solid self-sustainability. Currently, about 50% of total operating expenses are covered with the income generated by existing operations. Once financially self-sufficient, Yehu will be able to access capital markets for loans at market and just below market interest rates to facilitate continued growth.

The Yehu Story
Louis Pope visited Kenya on an expedition with Choice Humanitarian in 1998. He had recently met with Mohammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank and when he arrived in Kenya, he felt that Microcredit was very much needed in the rural areas where Choice was working. He asked the country director of Choice to talk with the women in the various villages where Choice was working to see if there was interest in a village bank. When he returned to Kenya six months later there were 300 women ready and excited to form a microcredit institution. Louis and four friends each donated $5,000 to provide the seed capital for the loan fund. Choice's country director used a handbook from the UN called MicroStart and Yehu was formed. Yehu, in the local dialect, means "our" bank. This was the name the first group of women chose for their organization.

Rita de Nicolo Lugogo is CEO of Yehu in Kenya. She was born in Italy and educated in the United States. After earning a degree in Biology from the University of Connecticut, she joined the Peace Corp as a teacher in Kenya where she met her husband, Juma Lugogo. Rita and Juma raised their three children in Kenya. Rita's continued educational pursuits earned her a PhD from Virginia Tech in Human Nutrition and Foods. In 1993, Rita became Choice Humanitarian's full-time director in Kenya, a position which she fulfills in addition to her responsibilities at Yehu. In addition to Dr. Lugogo and her local management team, Yehu founders, key supporters, and several business leaders form an advisory committee to help direct affairs.

The leadership team from Choice Humanitarian also reviews progress at Yehu on a regular basis and has a direct channel for feedback and input.

Yehu Innovations
Yehu is unique in that it is exclusively rural with no branches or centers in an urban or peri-urban area. A recent innovation is the concept of MicroFranchising which we are developing along with the BYU Center for Economic Self-Reliance. The first two pilot projects involve small-scale presses to make extra virgin coconut oil and using micro-irrigation water pumps to create businesses selling water and growing cash crops.