Thursday, November 19, 2009
2009 Toronto Microfinance Conference
Hey guys,
I attended the 2009 Toronto Microfinance Conference last week-end. It was really neat - I had been to a couple planning meeting, and it was a huge success; 300 people came! That shows great interest in microfinance, woot!
Three highlights from speakers:
- Had heard someone from CARE once talk about how they're experimenting with "micropharmacies" in Kenya; that's giving financing for people to start medical and phara outlets where there is little access. Very cool - someone from Gems of Hope went as far as saying that health is the "future of microfinance"...
- on the same line of thought, OpportunityInternational has launched this project called MicroSchools, that's providing financing for people to start private schools in areas that are not served by the public system. It's creating employment for excess teachers and also providing safer access, esp for girls for whom it's not always possible to walk to the next village to go to school.
- the big theme of the closing session was "partnership" - with a $2.25 billion gap between supply and demand for microfinance services, there's a big big scaling up debate going on with institutions talking amongst each other about how they can fund each other's borrowers and so on.. fascinating!
I've been doing the back channel on Twitter so check it out for more info (username : onomatopee)
Also, Opportunity International has a youth committee that hopes to stir things up for youth with an interest in microfinance. I'm thinking of staying in the loop. Email amadonia@opportunityinternational.ca if you'd like to be a part of it too =)
Cheers,
Ém
I attended the 2009 Toronto Microfinance Conference last week-end. It was really neat - I had been to a couple planning meeting, and it was a huge success; 300 people came! That shows great interest in microfinance, woot!
Three highlights from speakers:
- Had heard someone from CARE once talk about how they're experimenting with "micropharmacies" in Kenya; that's giving financing for people to start medical and phara outlets where there is little access. Very cool - someone from Gems of Hope went as far as saying that health is the "future of microfinance"...
- on the same line of thought, OpportunityInternational has launched this project called MicroSchools, that's providing financing for people to start private schools in areas that are not served by the public system. It's creating employment for excess teachers and also providing safer access, esp for girls for whom it's not always possible to walk to the next village to go to school.
- the big theme of the closing session was "partnership" - with a $2.25 billion gap between supply and demand for microfinance services, there's a big big scaling up debate going on with institutions talking amongst each other about how they can fund each other's borrowers and so on.. fascinating!
I've been doing the back channel on Twitter so check it out for more info (username : onomatopee)
Also, Opportunity International has a youth committee that hopes to stir things up for youth with an interest in microfinance. I'm thinking of staying in the loop. Email amadonia@opportunityinternational.ca if you'd like to be a part of it too =)
Cheers,
Ém
