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Dear Friends,
 This has been a great year! As we celebrate the
first anniversary of our eNewsletter, you will notice some
changes. We now refer to ourselves as Grameen Foundation (GF) to
reflect our global focus. And, we have a new look to complement
our new website.
We've rebuilt the website from the ground up to make it
easier for you to see what we are doing to defeat global poverty
and for you to share the story with friends. Please take a look
at www.grameenfoundation.org,
and let us know what you think by replying to this message.
Meanwhile, our poverty-fighting progress has been
substantial. When we laid out our five year strategic plan in
2004, we set a key goal of bringing microfinance to five million
more of the world's poorest families. Our partners have
collectively grown over the last 30 months from serving 940,000
families to 2.2 million. That puts us on course for reaching
five million families by the end of 2008.
Our focus on innovations has reaped many rewards. In
particular, in just one year the Growth Guarantees Program has
brought $8.2 million to microfinance institutions around the
world, directly benefiting tens of thousands of poor
families.
Our technology innovations have been equally important. Our
Village Phone program, which is inspired by Grameen Bank's
successful venture, was launched in Rwanda and we are working on
future replications in Africa and Asia. And in just a few
months, we will be launching Mifos, an open-source information
management platform that will improve our partners' ability to
operate efficiently and grow more rapidly.
We want to thank our loyal subscribers who started with us
one year ago and the thousands around the world who have now
joined us. We look forward to bringing you continued news of our
work to help the world's poorest.
Sincerely,
Alex Counts
President
Growth Guarantees celebrates its successful
inaugural year
Since its inception one year ago, Grameen Foundation's Growth
Guarantees Program has engineered $8.2 million in loans to
six microfinance institutions (MFIs), helping to bring financial
services to more than 65,000 poor people across Asia, Latin
America and the Middle East. The program was announced during
the inaugural Clinton Global Initiative in September 2005, and
formally launched on November 1. It provides loan guarantees for
MFIs to receive financing from their local commercial banks and
supports local capital markets transactions such as bond issues
or private placements. The program is one of the few funds that
give MFIs the option to borrow funds in local currency, which
benefits them in two important ways: It helps to protect them
from foreign exchange risk and it also promotes stronger
relationships between the MFIs and the local banks.
The program has already broken new ground in several
countries. In Bolivia, it secured simultaneous loans totaling
$1.5 million for Pro Mujer Bolivia from two separate banks -- a
first for a Bolivian MFI. And, just this week, in Egypt, the
Grameen-Jameel Initiative, a partnership between Grameen
Foundation and the Abdul Latif Jameel Group, brokered a $2.5
million loan to DBACD; this is the first investment by an
Egyptian-based international bank in that country's microfinance
industry.
For the MFIs, the Growth Guarantees Program is helping to
bring a new level of interest from local banks. "Until now,
getting the leading Bolivian banks to finance our portfolio has
been difficult largely because they viewed microfinance
operations with uncertainty," said Carmen Velasco, Pro Mujer's
executive director.
With commercial funding in microfinance gaining steam,
Grameen Foundation is working to help banks and other financial
institutions see MFIs and their clients as good financial
investments that can reap a positive social reward.
Learn
more about our Capital Markets programs >
Live from the Field in Lebanon
Photo
Heather took during evacuation from Lebanon
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Last November, Grameen Foundation opened a regional office
in Beirut, Lebanon, in partnership with the Abdul Latif Jameel
Group. Though the office was immediately closed after the war
with Israel broke out in July, Heather Henyon, our Regional
Director for the
Middle East and North Africa, returned to Beirut this week.
She submitted a report on the impact of the war from Youssef
Fawaz, the director of Lebanese microfinance institution Al
Majmoua. The week the war started, GF had just started
evaluating Al Majmoua as a potential partner. Excerpts from
Youssef's report follow:
...More than 65% of Al Majmoua's clients were in the most
severely hit areas.... As many as 35 (out of 75) of Al Majmoua's
staff and their families had to flee for safety.... Wherever
feasible and safe, Al Majmoua offered its field offices as
shelters for some of our staff members.
...Following the first few days, when all of the country
seemed dazed and paralyzed by the unfolding nightmare, Al
Majmoua tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy in its main
office.
...The morning after [the cease fire], Al Majmoua staff
members and clients alike returned to discover the scale of the
destruction visited on their villages, homes, businesses,
fields, livestock, and on their livelihoods. A couple of staff
members found their apartments a pile of rubble.
...Our preliminary estimates indicate that about 2,200
clients (out of a total of 7,000) were directly or indirectly
affected. Four lost their lives, while 357 completely lost their
homes and/or their place of work. Nine sustained injuries and
have become physically handicapped... 69 clients are still
unaccounted for.
...Many factors are still unknown, however, it is clear that
a new class of economic poor has been created. These will
probably need access to micro loans to jump start their
businesses.
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