Council Activities
|
To advance the two goals of the Campaign, Council Members pledge to:
To join a Microcredit Summit Campaign Council, please fill out the appropriate Council Membership Form below.
Joanne Carter, Executive Director, RESULTS, USA
Robert (Bob) Christen, President, Boulder Institute of Microfinance, USA
Chris de Noose, Managing Director, WSBI, Belgium
Dr. D. Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari, Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project, India
Noeleen Heyzer, Under Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand
Ned Hill, Former Dean, Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University, USA
Michaël Knaute, Executive Director, Convergences 2015 & CEO, OXUS Group, France
Iris Lanao Flores, Executive President, RED LADER (Latin American Network for Gender Justice in Economic Development) & CEO, FINCA Peru, Peru
Mazide Ndiaye, President and CEO, Forum for African Voluntary Development Organizations (FAVDO), Senegal
*Chief Bisi Ogunleye, Chair, Country Women’s Association of Nigeria, Nigeria
Carmen Velasco, Co-Founder and Director, Pro Mujer, Inc., Bolivia
William Vendley, Secretary General, World Conference on Religion and Peace, USA
* Also a member of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Executive Committee.
Members of the Council of Advocates & Support Organizations are involved in education, advocacy, fundraising, policy development, or research on behalf of microfinance providers (MFIs, Self-Help Group Promoting Institutions, Savings Group support organizations, etc.) or the improvement of the practice of microfinance, generally. Membership in this Council is open to both institutions and individuals.
Members of this Council may also deliver social services in the field to communities that are also served by microfinance. Typically, Advocates & Support Organizations work with the media to promote the Campaign's Two Goals and to educate the public about the ways that microfinance can help mitigate the worst aspects of poverty. They also work directly with policy makers, funders and investors, researchers and educational institutions, and the general public to educate these groups on the value of microfinance.
Members of this Council may lobby to influence or persuade their government to support those providers which serve the poorest, especially women, and which strive toward financial self-sufficiency. They advocate, for example, that their government should provide financial support directly to MFIs or create a favorable policy environment to help ensure a positive and measureable impact in clients’ lives. Some advocates also work to raise funds for microfinance programs from private, non-governmental sources and others monitor or assess the impact of those services on the lives of clients and their families. Advocates & Support Organizations may be corporations that seek to create strategic businesses alliances with microfinance programs through corporate philanthropy.
This Council consolidates the following historical Councils: Advocates, Corporations, Individual Supporters, Non-Governmental Organizations, Religious Institutions, Service Clubs, and UN Agencies.
Join this Council by completing the information below.
Who are the members of this Council?
† These fields are required
Janamitra Devan, Vice President, Financial & Private Sector Development, The World Bank Group, USA
Pamela Flaherty, President, Citi Foundation, USA
Andrew Krieger, Managing Director, Elk River Trading LLC., USA
Eugene Ludwig, Managing General Partner, Promontory Financial, USA
*Kanayo F. Nwanze, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Italy
Soledad Ovando Green, Managing Director, Bancoestado Microempresas S.A., Chile
Franck Riboud, CEO, Groupe Danone, France
*Also a member of Microcredit Summit Campaign Executive Committee
Members of the Council of Funders & Investors are not exclusively dedicated to delivering microfinance products and services; if this describes you or your organization, you should join the Council of Microfinance Practitioners & Associations. Membership in this Council is open to both institutions and individuals.
Funders & Investors may implement funding guidelines that allows them to allocate a certain amount of funds to institutions that serve the extreme poor in developing countries and the poor in industrialized countries, setting goals to foster financial self-sufficiency. They typically implement lending guidelines for their microfinance partners that follow the Campaign’s four core themes: reaching the poorest, reaching and empowering women, building financial self-sustainability, and ensuring positive and measureable outcomes. Members of this Council sometimes provide funding for technical assistance or training programs for these same institutions and frequently have staff exclusively recruited, trained, and dedicated for their microfinance projects.
This Council consolidates the following historical Councils: Banks and Commercial Finance Institutions, Bilateral Donor Agencies, Corporations , Foundations and Philanthropists, International financial Institutions, and UN Agencies.
Join this Council by completing the information below.
Who are the members of this Council?
† These fields are required
Members of the Council of Heads of State & Government are high profile dignitaries who have been elected to public office in their country at any level. They are individuals who are capable of drawing media and public attention to the Campaign’s Two Goals or of advocating to their peers for creating a suitable environment for microfinance that serves the very poorest to thrive in their respective countries.
† These fields are required
*John Hatch, Founder, FINCA International, USA
Ingrid Munro, Founder and Managing Trustee, Jamii Bora Bank, Kenya
*Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director, Bangladesh
Roshaneh Zafar, Managing Director, Kashf Foundation, Pakistan
* Also a member of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Executive Committee.
Members of the Council of Microfinance Practitioners & Associations offer financial and non-financial services directly to poor and very poor households. Practitioners may offer various forms of credit, savings, and insurance products among other financial services. In addition to these, they may also offer other non-financial services such as business training, marketing assistance, financial literacy, health education and other health-related services, or women’s rights and gender empowerment. Many practitioners measure or aim to measure the movement of their clients above the US$1.25 a day threshold (or out from the bottom 50 percent of the population living below their country’s poverty line). To that end, they use different tools or methods, such as the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI).
Associations of microfinance providers are also included in this Council. They assist their membership in developing operational capacity, mainstreaming social performance principles into their operations, and a plethora of other technical needs. Associations advocate on behalf of their membership to their governments for establishing an enabling environment for microfinance in their countries.Join this Council by completing the information below.
Who are the members of this Council?
Complete your Institutional Action Plan:
Download & Complete your Institutional Action Plan: Practitioners in Developing Countries
Download & Complete your Institutional Action Plan: Practitioners in Industrialized Countries
† These fields are required
Dr. Aziz Akgül, former Deputy for Diyarbakır, Parliament of the Grand National Assembly, Turkey
Dean Allison, Member of Parliament, House of Commons, Canada
*Soraya Rodríguez Ramos, Former Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Spain
*Also a member of the Microcredit Summt Campaign Executive Committee
Members of the Council of Policy Makers are elected officials or government-supported agencies with responsibility for making policy decisions related to microfinance. They seek to create an enabling environment in their country for microfinance programs and use governmental guidelines that support privately owned and managed MFIs. Senior civil servants and cabinet ministers are encouraged to spend several days visiting and studying microfinance programs within the country or abroad, and they support policies that encourage the creation of microfinance programs. Members of this Council promote excellence and innovative programs that are serving the poorest through the media or even establishing national awards.
In addition, members of the Council of Policy Makers establish legislation to create grant funds or loan schemes to microfinance programs, sometimes through the creation of an autonomous fund or foundation. These entities are then overseen by domestic government agencies. Priority to these funds might be given to institutions that follow the Campaign’s four core themes (i.e., reaching the poorest, reaching and empowering women, building financial self-sustainability, and ensuring positive and measureable outcomes) and/or that meet industry standards such as the Client Protection Principles, Universal Standards for Social Performance, or the Pro-Poor Seal of Excellence or focus on the Campaign’s four core themes.
This Council consolidates the following historical Councils: Domestic Government Agencies and Parliamentarians and Other Elected Officials.
Join this Council by completing the information below.
Who are the members of this Council?
† These fields are required
Ned Hill, Former Dean, Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University, USA
Robert (Bob) Christen, President, Boulder Institute of Microfinance, USA
Members of the Council of Researchers & Academic Institutions typically pursue a research agenda to study relevant issues such as the impact of financial or non-financial services on the life of the borrower, their families and communities, and/or best practices in reaching the poorest or achieving financial self-sufficiency. They also encourage Masters/Doctoral students to study those topics or offer scholarships or fellowships for those studying microfinance programs.
Members of this Council might provide education to practitioners, funding organizations, students, and government officials through special courses, seminars, or workshops and many have integrated the study of microfinance into their regular curricula programs. They also have established a collection of publications on the industry.
Researchers & Academic Institutions may have established a supportive relationship with microfinance providers. They assist these institutions, among other ways, by volunteering faculty or student time to translate training material, sponsoring an internship program for students to work with MFIs, or even by fundraising for them.
Join this Council by completing the information below.
Who are the members of this Council?
† These fields are required

Sign up for our News Bulletin!
Email Us