The Microcredit Summit Campaign
About Us

History of the Campaign

The first Microcredit Summit, held February 2-4, 1997, gathered more than 2,900 people from 137 countries in Washington, D.C. 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. (Read the Declaration and Plan of Action from that summit.) By 2005, that goal was very nearly reached and in November of 2006 the Campaign was re-launched to 2015 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 families rise above the US$1.25 a day threshold adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), between 1990 and 2015.

The 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 stimulate the interchanging of knowledge, and to work towards reaching our goals.

The Microcredit Summit Campaign is a project of the RESULTS Educational Fund, a U.S.-based grassroots advocacy organization committed to ending hunger and poverty. To find out more about RESULTS and its International Affiliates, click here

What are the core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign?

These are the four core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign:

  • Reaching the poorest. The Summit recognizes that the field of microfinance includes institutions providing financial and other services to constituencies that -- while not necessarily among the poorest -- are overlooked by the traditional banking sector. However, the Summit specifically focuses on reaching the poorest families, defined in the Declaration and Plan of Action as families in developing countries among the bottom 50 percent of those living below their nation’s poverty line. Another way of looking at this target is to see the 1.2 billion people living in absolute poverty as comprising some 240 million families. These 240 million families comprise the group from which most of the Microcredit Summit’s target of 100 million poorest will come. Within industrialized countries the Summit is focused on all of those living below their nation’s poverty line.
  • Reaching and empowering women. Experience shows that women are a good credit risk, and that woman-run businesses tend to benefit family members more directly than those run by men. At the same time, through earning an income women achieve a higher status in their homes, their communities, and their nations.
  • Building financially self-sufficient institutions. The Declaration and Plan of Action emphasizes the importance of programs in developing countries reaching financial self-sufficiency. Experience has shown that microcredit programs in developing countries can improve their efficiency and structure their interest rates and fees to eventually cover their operating and financial costs. This is demonstrated powerfully in a paper commissioned by the Campaign titled: The Microcredit Summit’s Challenge: Building Financially Self-Sufficient Institutions While Maintaining a Commitment to Reaching the Poorest. Day-long courses offered by the Campaign at global and regional meetings held from 1999 through 2001 train practitioners in this area. Through the economic context in industrialized countries is radically different, the Summit encourages programs in industrialized countries to explore ways of becoming self-sufficient so that, to the greatest extent possible, their operating costs will be covered through direct revenue from program services.
  • Ensuring a positive, measurable impact on the lives of clients and their families. While financial measures such as program repayment rates give an indication of the strength of a microcredit institution, the Microcredit Summit is committed to programs having a positive, measurable impact on the lives of the very poor. Two impact assessment studies conducted by the non-governmental microcredit organization Freedom From Hunger showed that current clients of its affiliate institutions in Honduras and Mali experienced positive program impact at the individual, household, and community levels. The studies demonstrated that when compared to non-clients, current clients were more likely to have larger enterprises; experience an increase in personal income and household food consumption; have personal savings; and feel a greater sense of empowerment and higher self esteem.

Within the Microcredit Summit Campaign the theme of ensuring impact is addressed in a paper titled: Measuring Transformation: Assessing and Improving the Impact of Microcredit, and in day-long courses offered at global and regional meetings.

The four core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign help focus the Campaign not only on the number of clients reached but also on the quality of the practitioners’ work. The Campaign will have failed if 100 million families are reached, but they were not among the poorest when they joined the program. The Campaign will have failed if 100 million families are reached, but few of the clients were women. The Campaign will have failed if 100 million families are reached, but the institutions are not strong enough to continue providing services to future clients. The Campaign will have failed if 100 million families are reached, but there is little impact on the lives of the clients and their families.

To learn more about our core themes, you can read papers commissioned by the Microcredit Summit Campaign. You can also read the State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report, detailing the progress of the Campaign since 1997.

Who are the poorest families?

The Microcredit Summit Campaign defines the poorest families in developing countries as the bottom 50% of those living below their country’s poverty line or those living on less than $1.25 a day adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), based on 2005 prices. In the industrialized world, the Campaign targets all those who live below the poverty line.

Reaching 100 million of the world’s poorest families is only one step in eradicating poverty worldwide, however.  Currently (August 2008), the World Bank estimates that 1.4 billion people (roughly 280 million families) are living on less than US$1.25 a day (learn more).

Read more about serving the poorest in our commissioned papers:

Why target Women?

Women are often responsible for the upbringing of the world’s children, and the poverty of the women generally results in the physical and social underdevelopment of their children. Experience shows that women are a good credit risk, and that women invest their income toward the well being of their families. At the same time, women themselves benefit from the higher social status they achieve within the home when they are able to provide income.  Read more about this in our commissioned papers:

How are institutions, other than microcredit lenders, contributing to the Summit's goal?

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide social services such as literacy, health, and family planning are partnering with microcredit practitioners or are moving to incorporate microcredit training and other services into their programming. Educational institutions provide the foundation for what we value as a global society; it is important that they educate students, the future leaders of the world, about the powerful potential of microcredit as an anti-poverty tool. Advocacy organizations can help build the commitment of the general public and of the world’s governments through fundraising, education, policy development, and research focused on the Microcredit Summit’s goal. These are the contributions of just three of the fifteen Councils that incorporate almost every sector of society.

How can I get involved with the Microcredit Summit Campaign?

Here are four ways to get involved in the Microcredit Summit Campaign:

  1. Stay informed. You can subscribe to our new e-bulletin and receive periodic informational updates via e-mail on the progress of the Campaign. 
  2. Learn from your colleagues. Your organization can join one of fifteen different Microcredit Summit Councils. To determine which Council your organization should join, click here.
  3. Implement what you learned and share your results. After joining a Microcredit Summit Council, your organization should submit and implement an Institutional Action Plan. An Institutional Action Plan (IAP) outlines the work an organization has done and intends to do to further the goal and core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. Each Council Member is requested to submit an IAP annually. Please click here to download the IAP appropriate to your organization’s Council.
  4. Engage others in the Campaign. Your organization should look for other ways to contribute to the campaign, including enlisting other organizations to join the Microcredit Summit Campaign. E-mail us to request outreach materials you can send to interested organizations. You can also contact us about opportunities to volunteer with the Microcredit Summit Campaign.