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
Vol 1 Iss 3 July '03
Vol 1 Iss 2 May '03
Vol 1 Iss 1 March '03

» Current Issue

E-News Information

Reprinting Permissions

Sponsors for the Microcredit Summit +5

Subscribe to Microcredit Summit E-News

HE Vicente Fox, President of Mexico

I am fully convinced that the fight against poverty concerns the world over, and not only a few countries.

The face of poverty is one of human development, and this requires all our efforts in economy, culture, education, health, and in creating opportunities. The other face of poverty is participation, solidarity, and the inclusion of people and their communities of individuals in opportunities for development. Microfinance and microcredit have shown in the last few decades that through small amounts of money, targeted properly to support efforts, and talents of people and individuals, can achieve great change. Vast social transformations are realized through the efforts of thousands of families, women, and citizens in their hopes and dreams that have come to life.

We must demonstrate results concerning the international policies and international programs. We must demonstrate a real commitment to achieving and reaching this goal. Microcredit and microfinance are elements of reconstruction of the social fabric. Not only in terms of productivity but also in solidarity. In fact, the collective guarantee for microcredit brings order to communities; it unites communities that were previously fractured, fighting for survival. The microfinance institutions are a product of civil society to fight poverty. As governments, we must promote and empower these efforts. Our goal must be alliance between governments and civil society allowing for civil society to go further with microfinance. This means we must form a new heritage and a new world vision for the future. We must plant the seed of development, making opportunities attainable for people—and specifically for women—so they can recover their faith and their trust in themselves, in their ability to promote the efforts of development, as well as through microfinance, reaching poor centers of our population so that they have a more fair and prosperous future.

[In Mexico] We’ve worked towards a pyramid of institutions, which could increase access to a system of saving and credit and financing for the whole population. At the base of the pyramid are microcredit institutions, providing the small credits and financings for families who are the poorest in our communities and in our countries. We reinforce and directly support the microfinance companies so that they can expand and grow. In the second level, we’ve reconstructed cooperative systems, savings systems, and agricultural cooperative systems, in the rural areas. The third level is comprised of trust funds from government entities who support micro-, middle-, and small companies. And on top, servicing only 30% of the population is the financial system that we all know. This formula has worked and has been very successful in Mexico.

Read remarks by HE Isatou Ndjaie Sady