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| Volume 1, Issue 1: March 2003 | ||||
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In This Issue Speech Excerpts from the Microcredit Summit +5 Plenary Session: Ensuring Impact International Year of Microcredit Archived Issues
Vol 1 Iss 4 Sept. '03 E-News Information |
HE Begum Sehba Musharraf, First Lady, Pakistan
...It is a privilege and an honor for me to address the Microcredit Summit +5 as the leader of the Pakistan delegation and Chairperson of the Regional Steering Committee for the Advancement of Rural and Island Women. We are pleased to be associated with the Microcredit Summit Campaign and fully support its objectives as it is in keeping with our 1992 Geneva Declaration on the economic advancement of the world’s women. We are therefore committed to achieving the goals the Summit has set out in its first meeting in 1997. Mr. Chairman, we are well aware of the challenges poverty poses to human kind. Inequalities between the richest and the poorest people are widening. Women are worst hit by poverty and with them, the family unit gets untangled in a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, disease and even more poverty. Clearly, action is needed on a number of fronts, as only a multi-pronged approach can tackle the problem of poverty. Microcredit is one instrument that holds the greatest promise for transforming the lives of the economically underprivileged.... In Pakistan as in many developing countries, poverty combines with illiteracy and backwardness resulting in more adversity. As a result the poor become victims to unscrupulous and exploitative moneylenders who hold entire families to ransom for life. There is a need therefore for a responsive financial system, which reaches out to the people and delivers services at their doorstep.... In the year 2000 the government of Pakistan introduced a new policy dispensation focused on microfinance services. Central to this innovative policy regime a dedicated legislation was promulgated and a comprehensive regulatory framework was put in place. The central bank now oversees the licensing process and operations of the new institutions. An integral part of these initiatives is the Kushali Bank, a well-capitalized institution established to act as flagship of the program. Additionally, the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, one of the largest funds of its kind, has been established with the assistance of the World Bank to promote the development of marketing skills and financial empowerment, especially of women. These new institutions now give …support to many programs including the National Rural Support Program. It assists the poor at the grassroots level. Now with this infrastructure in place the role of donors in particular will be critical. This conference would like to call upon the donor community to increase their contribution to the microfinance sector. A recent research study has been conducted to determine the impact of microcredit at the household level. Accumulated evidence suggests that the lives of the beneficiaries and their families have [a] significant increase....I keenly look forward to the deliberation of the conference and wish you all a successful and productive forum. I am confident that the Microcredit Campaign will receive a significant boost from this conference and its goals will come closer to realization... |