The Citi Foundation, the grant-making foundation of international financial services firm Citigroup, has pledged a USD 100,000 grant to PlaNet Finance, the French non-profit company that assists microfinance institutions (MFIs), towards the development of a microfinance training curriculum in Arabic. This will be aimed at MFIs in seven Arab countries and delivered through 50 course modules designed to provide them with skills in human resources, planning and strategy, products, accounting, supervision and finance. There will be five-day training sessions in Casablanca, Cairo, Beirut, Amman, Ramallah, Damascus and Sana’a over the next three years.
PlanetFinance, which provides technical assistance, rating assessments and financing to MFIs, claims that the number of microfinance active clients in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) has increased more than tenfold since 1999, from 129,000 to approximately 1.5 million, but that another 4.5 million are still lacking access to financial services. Compared to other parts of the world such as Latin America and South Asia, the microfinance sector in the MENA region is still underdeveloped both in terms of beneficiaries as well as MFIs. So far the majority of the MFIs in the region are non-profit, non-government organisations (NGOs) with very few commercial banks active in the sector.
The Citi Foundation supports programs in the areas of youth education, financial education, and supporting communities and entrepreneurs. It donated USD 92 million in grants in 2006.
To learn more about this author, visit David Satterthwaite's Website.
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David Satterthwaite
(Visit David's Website)
David brings 10 years of experience in
microfinance management, social
entrepreneurship, non-profit
management/fund-raising and microfinance
investment research.
David is the Chairman and President of
Prisma Microfinance, Inc., a retail
“microbank” operating in Central America.
He is also Chief Editor of
MicroCapital.org, a news and information
service for the microfinance community and
its investors. Each month,
MicroCapital.org publishes the
MicroCapital Monitor, the leading industry
newspaper.
David writes and speaks frequently on
microfinance. He has been a quest speaker
at many events, including: Microcredit
Summit 5+: Panel on Private Investment,
Milken Institute Global Conference, United
Nations Year of Microcredit Symposium for
Wall Street, Chicago Conference on
Microfinance, Harvard Social Enterprise
Conference, Dartmouth’s Business
Sustainability Conference, Wharton’s
Conference on Social Entrepreneurship,
Stanford’s Social Enterprise Club,
Columbia’s Social Enterprise Program and
the Net Impact Annual Conference. Through
his work with Prisma and MicroCapital, he
has been featured or quoted in The Wall
Street Journal, the Boston Globe, “All
Things Considered,” Reuters and
SocialFunds.com. David has been
recognized with the Compaq Computer
Corporation Leadership Award, the City
Year Inspiring Leader Award and the
National Social Venture Business Plan
Competition award for Best Social Impact
Analysis.
David has supported many non-profit and
for-profit social enterprises in different
capacities, including Access Technology
Learning Center, Agora Partnerships,
Bridges to Business, City Year, Fonkoze,
Kiva and National Social Venture
Competition.
David holds a B.A. with Honors in
Political Science from Haverford College.
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Impressive stuff on IT growth in the Middle East & North Africa, all contained in a new IDC report:
