Preface

 

            The small and medium enterprises form the bulk of the economies of developing countries, in terms of production and providing employment opportunity. In formulating a strategy for attaining rapid and equitable development, the Governments of NAM member countries should therefore focus on providing maximum support for SMEs (including the micro ones). From the experience of a number of NAM member countries, the “trickle-down” approach to development has resulted in accentuating inequities and has also rendered the economies very fragile.

           

            In conjunction with the programme on SMEs, and in view of the importance of facilitating the provision of capital to SMEs and the fact that there has been considerable experiences of various NAM member countries, such as BRAC in Bangladesh and BRI in Indonesia, the Board of Directors decided to take up this particular issue as part of the NAM CSSTC work programme, at present and future time. 

 

            NAM CSSTC therefore organized a workshop on “Micro Credit Schemes in NAM Member Countries” in Jakarta, Indonesia on 24-26 June 2002. The purpose was to discuss the role of micro finance in poverty eradication; Government support to micro financing; micro credit as a tool for empowering women and the philosophy and technical aspects of micro credit services. One of the major conclusions was, because of the urgent need, for NAM CSSTC to conduct regional or sub-regional  training programme on micro credit, to provide technical assistance and to produce appropriate manuals/modules for NAM member countries.

 

            Following up the workshop, NAM CSSTC in collaboration with BRI conducted a regional training on “Micro Credit Scheme for East Asia and the Pacific Region” in Jakarta, August 2002. The similar event was organized in collaboration with (MEA of South Africa on “Micro Credit Schemes for Southern Africa Region” in Pretoria, October 2002.

 

            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. Subjects discussed included emergence of microfinance, financial services and its management, market research for product development, delinquency management, financial ratio analysis, setting interest rates, internal control, sustainability of micro finance, building customer loyalty, and impact assessment of micro finance programme.

 

            This proceedings reported the process and outputs of the regional training held in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hope it is of useful material for micro finance development which has been widely implemented in the developing countries.

 

 

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