Program launch planned for Sept. 30 during the Caribbean Microfinance Forum IV in Bridgetown, Barbados

Fifteen microfinance institutions in the Caribbean will participate in the second phase of the regional Microfinance Capacity-Building Project for the English-speaking Caribbean (Carib-Cap II), a program aimed at helping the region develop its microfinance industry.

Carib-Cap II will be launched on Sept. 30 during the Caribbean Microfinance Forum IV in Bridgetown, Barbados. The program is a joint effort by the Multilateral Investment Fund, member of the IDB Group, the Caribbean Development Bank, the European Commission and Citi Foundation.

Carib-Cap II, a $2.7 million technical cooperation program, will provide individualized capacity-building training to 15 microfinance institutions in the region, building on Carib-Cap I successes in new client outreach and improved financial performance. Beneficiaries will include microfinance institutions from The Bahamas, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago.

The program tackles the unique growth challenges faced by microfinance institutions in the English-speaking Caribbean, by providing training on areas including management, marketing, product design and financial tools.

In the first phase, the $3 million Carib-Cap I program provided non-reimbursable financing for training, product development and strengthening of the Caribbean Microfinance Alliance (CMFA), a network of microfinance institutions established to develop a business ecosystem that expands lending to low-income enterprises. In the first year of the program, client outreach of participating institutions rose by 14 percent and their portfolio-at-risk was nearly cut in half, dropping from 27 percent to 13.7 percent.

Carib-Cap II will further strengthen the Caribbean Microfinance Alliance (CMFA) to increase its capacity to serve as a focal point for networking, knowledge-sharing and capacity-building for microfinance institutions in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean Microfinance Forum IV immediately precedes the Foromic, and is an annual gathering of microfinance institutions that begun under the auspices of the Carib-Cap project.

The theme of this year’s meeting is “Building High Performance MFIs – Increasing Financial Access for the Poor”. A highlight of this year’s meeting is a training program on the “SMART campaign”, an international effort spearheaded by the Center for Financial Inclusion (Accion) in Washington D.C. focusing on client protection. This training for the Caribbean is part of a larger collaboration between the MIF and the Center, and the goal is to assess and eventually certify microfinance institutions in responsible financial practices. The first Citi Micro-entrepreneurship Awards for the Caribbean will also be presented by Citi Foundation at this event.

About the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF)

The Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a member of the Inter-American Development Bank Group, was established in 1993, and is funded by 39 donor countries. MIF supports private sector-led development benefitting the poor and low-income populations—households, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and small farmers. It aims to give them the tools to boost their incomes by funding projects in three broad access areas: access to markets and the skills to compete in those markets, access to finance, and access to basic services. MIF is the largest technical assistance provider in Latin America and the Caribbean, leveraging US$100 million in project funds each year. (www.iadb.org/mif)

About the Caribbean Microfinance Alliance (CMFA)

The Caribbean Microfinance Alliance (CMFA) was established in 2011 under the auspices of the Caribbean Microfinance Capacity-building (CARIB-CAP) program and co-financed by the MIF, the European Commission and the Caribbean Development Bank. The CMFA is a network of microfinance practitioners in the Caribbean and it is domiciled in Kingston, Jamaica. ( www.caribbeanmicrofinancealliance.com )

SOURCE: Inter-American Development Bank