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Welcoming Remark Ms. Adiyatwidi Adiwoso Asmady Executive Director of NAM CSSTC
Distinguished the Representative of the Secretariat of the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia, Prof. Gunawan Sumodiningrat, Distinguished Representative of the Islamic Development Bank, Mr Charmeida Tjokrosuwarno Distinguished Representative of Bank Rakyat Indonesia Distinguished experts and participants of the meeting, Assalamu’alaikum wr. wb., Good Morning, It
is indeed a distinctive honour for me, on behalf of NAM Centre for
South-South Technical Cooperation (NAM CSSTC) to welcome you to this
opening ceremony of an important meeting of experts to formulate a basic
guideline on microfinance. I would also like to extend my warm welcome
to the prominent experts who have made the effort to be here with us.
I know that most of you have a hectic schedule but your presence
here are highly important and appreciated. I
would like also take this opportunity to especially extend my profound
appreciation to the Government of Indonesia that made this endeavour
possible. The presence of Prof. Gunawan Sumodiningrat, Chairman of the
National Working Group on Poverty Eradication of
the Republic of Indonesia, has
brought more meaning and
weight to this expert meeting. Prof.
Gunawan is also one of the prominent experts in microfinance development
in Indonesia for many years. This
meeting is also a mark of new step of cooperation
between two institutions
from the South to join together hand in hand in materializing the
concept of “pooling
resources” into actions. It
is for the first time that the Islamic Development Bank and the NAM
CSSTC have a joint programme. On
behalf of the NAM CSSTC, I would like to express our high appreciation
to the Islamic Development Bank, especially to Mr. Charmeida
Tjokrosuwarno, the IDB field representative in Jakarta, to make this
joint endeavour possible. I
believe that many institutions from the South share the common aims and goals for the benefit of the
countries of the South, therefore it is timely for us to work together
to accelerate the development of the South.
We hope that this kind of joint cooperation could be further
developed in the future between the existing institutions from the
South. I
would also like to express my sincere appreciation to Bank Rakyat
Indonesia which has been working closely
with the NAM CSSTC on the issue of micro credit.
Without their continuous support, our effort
would be meaningless. Ladies
and Gentlemen, In
line with the mandate of the NAM CSSTC, our programmes attach great
importance to the activities that could contribute directly and
indirectly to the development of the South. We have identified the main
issues of common concern of the developing countries which are
accomodated into three main pillars and one of them is the issue of
poverty eradication. The NAM CSSTC with its limited resources has to
carry out its mandates into action-oriented programmes. It is therefore
our programme this year focused on the activities that correspond to the
basic human needs, such as food, health, education and income generating
activities. This meeting is a part of our effort in contributing to the
needs of the developing countries, particularly in finding effective
ways and means to improve the quality of living standard of the poor
people. It has been well
recognized that microfinance is an effective tool in generating income
for the poor which could improve their livelihood.
This has led many governments and international donors to carry
out microfinance in their development agenda. We
all noted that some of the developing countries have success stories on
their microfinance experience. The Grameen Bank and Bangladesh Rural
Advancement Committee (BRAC) are
excellent examples of poverty alleviation models and their experiences
have been replicated in other countries. Bank Rakyat Indonesia in
Indonesia has proven to be successful in helping micro entrepreneurs to
establish business in rural areas.
And there are many other stories that I cannot mention one by one
here. Considering
the important role of microfinance in the effort of poverty alleviation,
the NAM CSSTC has convened series of workshops and trainings on micro
credit scheme in several regions and sub-regions in collaboration with
the regional micro credit institutions. The First Meeting was held in Jakarta in June 2002. It was a workshop to discuss the role of micro finance in poverty eradication, which recommended that NAM CSSTC conducts regional and sub-regional training programmes on micro finance, in order to provide technical assistance and to produce appropriate manual/modules for NAM member countries. The
NAM CSSTC then organized, in collaboration with Bank Rakyat
Indonesia, a regional training on “Micro Credit Scheme for East
Asia and the Pacific Region” in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 27-31 August
2002. The training project focused primarily on the technical aspects of
micro credit. The
second regional training was organized in collaboration with Micro
Enterprise Alliance (MEA) of South Africa on “Micro Credit Scheme for
Southern Africa Region” in Pretoria, South Africa, on 21-25 October
2002. This training focused on the management of micro finance
institutions (MFIs). The
third regional training was organized in collaboration with BRAC of
Bangladesh on “Micro Finance for Practitioners in South and Central
Asia” in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 24-28 March 2003. The training focused
on the practicalities of micro finance. Actually,
the NAM CSSTC had also planned to organize other regional training
programmes in Latin America and West Africa. But due to lack of
financial resources, we had to postpone them. Ladies
and Gentlemen, The
expert meeting today is convened to follow up the decision of the First
Meeting on Micro credit in 2002. It is intended to formulate a basic
guideline on micro finance for the developing countries.
It does not mean to duplicate or to overlap with other
institutions that have conducted similar meeting.
There are many meetings, workshops, working groups at national,
regional and international levels which also discuss this matter. Even
the United Nations has convened the Summit on Micro Credit in 1997 and
will launch the United Nations International Year of Micro Credit in
2005. And then the World Summit on Micro Credit was
convened in 2002 in New York. Several weeks ago, we just had the Asia
Pacific Region Meeting on Micro Credit Summit in Dhaka Bangladesh as the
preparation for the International Year on Micro Credit.
These make us all aware the important role of the micro finance
in alleviating poverty in a sustainable manner. Our
expert meeting today will formulate a basic guideline on microfinance in the context of poverty eradication and micro enterprises
development. The basic guideline is intended to lay foundation for
practical tools and also as an effort to bridge the gap between the
existing main policies and the available manuals in each individual
country. In this regard, there are two main themes to be considered,
namely on (1) economic
policy and regulation conducive to microfinance development, this
includes the issues of
macro economy, financial system, regulation & supervision,
and others, and (2)
institutional and capacity building of microfinance institution, this
includes the issues of governance, financial methodology, supervision
& internal control, training & technical assistance, and others. In
formulating the basic guidelines, we should bear in mind that the poor
is the heterogeneous group. They are usually classified into 4 layers:
the poorest of the poor, the labouring poor, the self-employed poor, and
the micro entrepreneur. Each
of the layer requires different approaches of financial services. Based
on many experiences in some of developing countries, there is a tangible phenomenon in microfinance
sphere, which: (1) people can save; (2) people prefer to have easy
access to financial service rather receiving subsidy; (3) microfinance
institutions is more sustainable; (4) large amount of unused financial
resources outside government budget; (5) micro entrepreneurs have grown and sustained within their
own community; and (6) poor people are both considered as producers and markets of financial
services. There
is a new paradigm in addressing the financial service for the poor.
They are vulnerable and require great attention to improve their
living standard, but they also provide large market for the financial
institutions. This
meeting of expert is for the purpose to bridge the gap between the
policy makers on the side of the government and the financial
institution as commercial entity on the other side.
The experts here today are the best resources of the developing
countries who should formulate a practical and workable guideline for
the policy makers and financial institutions to assist the efforts of
alleviating poverty. Ladies
and Gentlemen, It
is my hope that this expert meeting would achieve its objective and
contribute to the needs of the developing countries in finding solution
to eradicate poverty. With the participation of eleven
experts from different countries and competent observers, NAM CSSTC is
convinced that the meeting will be fruitful and beneficial. Finally,
on behalf of the Board of Directors of NAM CSSTC, I would like to
express our deep appreciation and gratitude to the Government of
Indonesia and the Islamic Development Bank for their cooperation and
financial assistance to support NAM CSSTC in facilitating technical
assistance to developing countries. Wassalamu’alaikum
wr. wb. Thank you. |