cat/capacity-building
In Kenya, SMEs are the mainstay of the economy and are expected to play a permanent role in realizing the Vision 2030, Kenya's evolvement group blueprint. Central Bank Governor Dr. Patrick Njoroge was the keynote speaker for the opening remarks at the Africa SME Finance Forum in Nairobi, which took place May 15-16.
30+ banking and finance professionals attended the Africa SME Finance Forum's study tour on May 14. The tour featured seven financial institutions and fintechs that have best in class, innovative ways of serving SMEs clients.
One of the visits was to Equity Bank Kenya Limited, a commercial bank headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.
"It was a real life example of what's going on in the industry. It was great to hear their story and to sort of hear how we can go about it as well," said Salima Sikutwa of Madison Bank, Zambia.
The Global SME Finance Forum 2018 will be held November 5-7 in Madrid, Spain. The annual flagship event of the SME Finance Forum will bring 500+ senior executives from commercial banks, development finance institutions, fintech companies, as well as regulators to focus on leveraging digital banking to serve MSMEs.
Lloyd Blankfein is Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. In this exclusive IFC Perspectives interview, he talks about the Goldman Sachs Foundation’s groundbreaking 10,000 Women initiative and the Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility (WEOF), a first-of-its-kind partnership with IFC, to improve access to finance for SMEs owned or run by women.
Launched in 2014, WEOF has now raised almost $1 billion to support women entrepreneurs across the developing world, helping to transform thousands of lives.
Financial institutions are increasingly recognizing the importance of non-financial services (NFS) in empowering women entrepreneurs to succeed. A critical component of these all-important NFS is education opportunities that can fill the business and financial knowledge gaps disproportionately faced by women SME owners and/or operators.
Join the Africa SME Finance Forum 2018 to access study visits to financial institutions and fintechs that have best in class, innovative ways of serving SMEs clients (priority access will be given to SME Finance Forum members and is on a first come first serve basis for non-members).
The World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF), committed to collaborate globally to empower the economic development of the world by fostering innovative financial instruments for SMEs, innovators and startups, has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the SME Finance Forum. The agreement means the two organizations will join in global efforts to ease access to finance for SMEs, which will create jobs and contribute to the world economy.
Recognizing their importance in the overall economy, countries around the world have established programs to boost the performance of small and mediumscale enterprises (SME); many of these revolve around the provision of training and/or consulting services.
Incofin Investment Management, a Belgian fund management company, and the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), a public-private development bank founded in 1970, recently signed the fourth capacity development agreement stemming from their partnership that was launched in 2008 to strengthen a total of 14 microfinance institutions (MFIs) worldwide.
Drawing on research in Brazil, India, Pakistan, the UK and the USA , the report finds that social enterprise is being used to support women’s empowerment in four powerful ways:
