European Microfinance Week 2015

From time to time, as part of European Microfinance Week, e-MFP organizes special parallel sessions for e-MFP partners. such sessions are designed to address a very particular topic of interest to a select audience, but are not part of the European Microfinance Week program. In 2015, e-MFP organized two such parallel sessions.

This session was specially designed for investors new to microfinance but who are interested in learning more about the sector and wanted to take the opportunity of the conference to do so and to meet all the relevant sector stakeholders. It was developed in collaboration with ALFI, the official representative body for the Luxembourg investment industry. The session provided the attendees with a broad overview of the sector and focused on the following issues: Dolores TORRES shared her insights on the challenges of operating a large, complex MFI providing a broad array of products and services; Bernd BALKENHOL discussed the state of leading-edge research into the experience of microfinance clients; Pierre VAN HEDEL presented how Rabobank Foundation, one of the oldest financial institutions in Europe, provides agricultural finance to serve small farmers in some of the poorest countries in the world; Roland DOMINICÉ reviewed investment trends over the past decade on the basis of Symbiotics MIV’s survey; Alex SILVA, as founder of the first microfinance investment fund in the world, Profund, shared his perspective of the changes in the sector over the past 20 years.