Ensuring Microcredit's Primary Goal is Changing Lives for the Poor Estrella Gutierrez - Inter Press Service
go to original July 25, 2013

Participants at the Fifth International Microfinance Forum in Caracas. (Estrella Gutiérrez/IPS)

CARACAS - Microfinance is essentially social, but its expansion and evolution towards diversified financial services for those who are excluded from the conventional system has compelled it to develop new codes and practices to reinforce the message that its goal is people – particularly the poor.

The Fifth International Microfinance Forum, held in the Venezuelan capital, studied the enforcement and monitoring of the new Universal Standards for Social Performance Management (USSPM) developed by the sector to ensure that internal practices and relations with clients are consistent with its mission of “changing lives.”

“Providing credit for people at the base of the social pyramid does not necessarily mean you are fulfilling a social mission. That is not enough, reality demands more,” Mario Medina, head of social assets projects for Mibanco in Peru, and one of the speakers at the forum, told IPS.

That extra mile “demands good practices in every activity, from collections and client support to how employees are treated,” said Medina, whose institution is one of the best known in Latin America for its support of microbusinesses, and which grants 90 percent of its loans without collateral.

Read the rest at Inter Press Service

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!