AGFUND Advances” MDGs”Timescaleby”Development Partnerships”for Poverty Reduction

The Philippines to host the 2013 Microcredit Summit the Microcredit Summit Campaign, a project of RESULTS Educational Fund, in partnership with the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, Inc. (MCPI), announced that the 2013 Partnerships against Poverty Summit will be held October 9 – 11, 2013, in the Philippines. With support from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (the Central Bank of the Philippines), this will be the 16th summit organized by the Campaign, and some 1,100 participants from around the world will convene at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Manila. The 2013 Microcredit Summit will focus on “Partnerships against Poverty: Finance, Government, Business, and Civil Society.” Participants will delve into some of the most advanced and successful examples of public-private partnerships (PPP) in the microfinance field, all while bringing together the relevant parties that can work together to elevate these programs to a large scale, including government regulators, microfinance practitioners, product design experts, providers of support services, and heads of institutional multinational banks. “Governments, microfinance institutions, businesses, and NGOs can facilitate the long journey out of poverty by providing the full range of products and services that clients need to address their vulnerabilities and take advantage of opportunities,” said Microcredit Summit Campaign director Larry Reed. “This Summit will focus on the best examples of partnerships that benefit those living in severe poverty. By bringing together stakeholders from a variety of different development sectors, we hope to catalyze the growth of public-private partnerships that serve the poor. ” The 2013Microcredit Summit comes at a critical time with just two years left to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. It is estimated that, at the current rate of progress, approximately 1 billion people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2015 and that, today, nearly 2.6 billion people in the world have no access to formal financial services. Microfinance providers work to reduce this gap and to offer non-financial services to help improve the lives of families around the world. They have the ability to effectively deliver education, business development services, and health services to the poorest, especially to women, living in rural areas of the world. When combined with savings, loans, and insurance, these interventions are powerful tools in the fight against global poverty. “Clients tell us they need education for their children, healthcare for their family, decent housing, and regular, nutritious meals,” said Professor Muhammad Yunus. “This should be the focus of our work at this upcoming Summit and in the years ahead”. The Campaign has chosen the Philippines as the host country for its excellent performance in microfinance as well as for its recognition of public-private partnerships as a development strategy that leads to inclusive economic growth and creates new opportunities that can significantly reduce poverty. The Philippines has been recognized as one of the countries with the best slogan, “Partnerships against Poverty”, set by the Microcredit campaign for the Philippines summit, represents a well-established principle in the strategy of the Arab Gulf Program for Development (AGFUND) www.agfund.org, which is headed by Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz. In the light of the goals aimed at eradicating poverty, particularly in the less fortunate developing countries, and the need to reach out to the vulnerable groups of women, children and people with disabilities, AGFUND, a leading organization in the field of supporting sustainable human development with a focus on the eradication of poverty, has responded in a practical manner to the Millennium first development goal. This goal was called for in the Millennium Summit, organized by the United Nations and attended by world leaders in September 2000. AGFUND’s response was manifested in developing its strategy by embracing the support of microcredit activities as a first priority in its financing processes over the last 9 years. AGFUND has indeed succeeded in achieving a great deal to support this goal and meet its requirements by supporting microfinance institutions in developing countries, supporting regional microcredit conferences, and participating in their preparation both in Africa and the Arab world. This was especially so in the microcredit conference in the Middle East and Africa, which was held in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in October 2004 in partnership with the Microcredit Summit. AGFUND also participated in the Nairobi Summit and in one in Spain. AGFUND founded seven banks and microfinance institutions in Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, and Sudan. These banks, which take the name of ‘Ibda’ (creativity), are the most prominent in industry in the Arab region. More than one million and two hundred poor citizens, i.e. 250 thousand families in the Arab world and Africa, have benefited from these banks. Thus, AGFUND banks for the poor contribute to securing new business opportunities, and thereby reduce the unemployment rate. AGFUND is oriented towards fighting poverty through microfinance in three dimensions or components: The first dimension is continuing to establish banks for the poor (‘Ibda’). The second dimension is the establishment of the AGFUND unit for technical support for the banks for the poor with a view to authenticating and transferring expertise and technical assistance, creating institutional links between the AGFUND banks, and generalizing this to the banks for the poor under construction, thus contributing to the development of the microfinance sector in the region. The third component of AGFUND’s orientation is to establish AGFUND’s outlet for micro-credit, which is based on the idea of providing credit facilities to AGFUND working and new banks as well as the other microfinance institutions in the Arab world through the provision of multiple and competitive financing products which meet the needs of the Arab world in order to contribute to bridging the huge gap between demand and supply of these products. microfinance regulatory framework and has many innovations in microfinance and poverty alleviation to share. “Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is deeply committed to promoting sound and sustainable microfinance as an integral component of our overall goal of building an inclusive financial system, and we welcome the opportunity to be involved in this important undertaking,” said BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco, Jr. World leaders that have attended past summits include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Queen Rania of Jordan as well as Presidents Dr. H. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, His Excellency Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, and Álvaro Uribe of Colombia. The 2013 Partnerships against Poverty Summit anticipates the participation of Heads of State, high-level government officials, and leading practitioners at the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and throughout the conference.