Welcome to our first issue of Countdown 2005, the quarterly newsletter of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. This issue features an interview with James Gustave Speth on MicroStart, a major microfinance pilot initiative by the United Nations Development Programme; a powerful speech by Robert Shapiro, Chairman and CEO of Monsanto Company and Co-Chair of the Microcredit Summit Council of Corporations; a lesson in best practice on ensuring loan repayment; a discussion with John Hatch, founder of FINCA, centering on their Institutional Action Plan; and the inspiring story of Rajamma in India, whose small loan helped her pull out of poverty and oppression.

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Countdown 2005 is available in English, French, and Spanish. The French and Spanish versions will be coming to this site soon.