microcredit

A new United Nations-backed development project will help nearly 120,000 Bangladeshi microentrepreneurs – 90 per cent of whom are women – expand their small enterprises and develop new ones.

The governors of several central banks, recipients of micro-business loans and other business people from around the globe attempted to zero in on the most effective ways to get credit to the poor, as a forum on microcredit, or grassroots financial services, continued today as part of the International Year of Microcredit 2005.

World Bank Director Paul Wolfowitz joined other leaders in international development at United Nations Headquarters today to call for an inclusive finance services in developing countries to reduce poverty at a forum on expanding microcredit, or small-scale services for poor entrepreneurs.

With the innovation of micro-financing, there is a now a powerful way to help many millions around the world finance their small business ventures, improve their homes, and come back after a natural disaster, but institutions will need to do their part in order reach the people in need, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a symposium of experts in Geneva today.

Marking the United Nations International Year of Microcredit 2005, financial experts from the UN and Wall Street met today to explore how to make financial services available to millions of poor and low-income people around the world.

With the United Nations International Year of Microcredit 2005 just two months old, a blue-ribbon group is holding a major symposium Saturday at UN Headquarters in New York to highlight changes in the use of the small loans to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

Stressing that micro-financing is crucial to poverty reduction worldwide, the United Nations labour agency has hailed the work of a United States-based non-governmental organization that seeks to reach 100 million of the poorest families with very small loans by the end of 2005, the UN International Year of Microcredit.

As the United Nations today dedicated 2005 to highlighting the benefits that small loans and savings accounts can bring to the world's poor and low-income people, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan stressed the need to make such financial services more accessible.

Making financial services such as credit, savings and insurance more accessible to poor and low-income people can help lift them out of poverty by enabling them to start businesses, save money and better support their families, the United Nations said today.

The top United Nations advocate for poor countries said today that microcredit programmes are the most effective way to aid in development, particularly for impoverished women, and urged Member States to contribute to the funds that supply the money that backs the loans.