cat/economic-growth-0
In this publication, you will read about the SME Finance Forum highlights in 2019.
Extract from the Foreword: The year 2019 has been a remarkable year for the SME Finance Forum — a year of continued, strong membership growth and effective delivery of member services. Since our launch in November 2015, we’ve grown from a few dozen committed early adopters into a global membership network.
My participation at the WBAF 2020 world congress
I always try to attend our member World Congress WBAF 2020, because it presents a unique mix of angel investors (all successful entrepreneurs in their own right), senior government policymakers, and others focused on supporting dynamic SMEs.
Since its formation, the SME Finance Forum has been on top of all of the major trends in this field. We predicted the importance of partnership when all around us were emphasizing fintech-bank competition. We declared that competitiveness in financing now had to include additional non-financial support for improving SMEs themselves – a reversal of decades of advice, but now common wisdom.
Winners of the 2019 Global SME Finance Forum Awards. Awards Ceremony held in Amsterdam on October 7th.
The Global SME Finance Forum 2019 welcomed over 650 attendees from more than 280 institutions in 75 countries. On the 5-year anniversary of the annual Forum, Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, UN Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA), delivered the keynote address. Read Queen's Máxima full remarks here.
Watch H.M. Queen Máxima remarks here.
Members IDB Invest and Overseas Private Investment Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding pledging to invest a combined $3 billion in development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean over the next five years, with the option of increasing the investment to $5 billion. IDB Invest and OPIC aim to match this investment by catalyzing additional capital from the private sector, for a total ranging between $6 billion and $10 billion.
Queen Máxima of the Netherlands celebrates 10 years as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA). The UN released a video on Twitterof the Queen talking about the improvements in financial inclusion over the past ten years. “We have made great progress in financial inclusion in the last ten years. Financial inclusion is a means to improve our Sustainable Development Goals from women’s empowerment, water sanitation, clean energy, reduction of poverty, food security, etc,” she said.
In this interview by James Militizer of NextBillion, Martin Burt, Founder and CEO of Fundacion Paraguaya, speaks about his book and suggests we ask a different question: Who owns poverty? In it, he explores what happens when you examine poverty from the viewpoint of the real experts: poor families themselves.
Washington, D.C., September 4th, 2019 – Proparco became the newest member of the SME Finance Forum, a global membership network that brings together financial institutions, technology companies, and development finance institutions to share knowledge, spur innovation, and promote the growth of SMEs. “200 million businesses worldwide need financing to invest, grow and create new jobs.
