Dhaka (AsiaNews/Agencies) Around 1300 economists, central bank directors and aid agency representatives from 44 countries are meeting today at the Asia-Pacific Microcredit Summit. The goal of the international summit is to find ways of promoting a microcrediting system in impoverished countries by 2005, dubbed by the UN as the "International Year of Microcredit".
The summit was organized by the Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation, a microcredit institution in Bangladesh, with the support of the Washington D.C.-based Microcredit Summit Campaign.
Giving the opening address is Bengali Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. During the course of the summit's meetings special guests will appear, like Queen Sofia of Spain and the wife of South African president, Zanele Mbeki.
Microcrediting was born in Bangladesh in 1976 as a means to fight poverty in poor countries. The economist Dr. Muhammad Yunnus came up with the idea for establishing the Grameen Bank, considered to be the first microcredit financial institution.
Based on this system, poor sectors of the population, which are denied traditional bank loans since they cannot offer any type of collateral, have access to small loans. Therefore they have the chance to build a small independent business operation to earn a living, gain employment, improve their standard of living and pay off incurred debt. Today the Grameen Bank has more than 2.4 million beneficiaries and its rate of repaid loans stands at 98%.
Currently, there are microcredit banks in over 40 developing countries, granting on average 100 dollars per loan. Many banks also offer technical assistance and advice on education, hygiene, nutrition, saving and retirement plans.
According to Salehuddin Ahmed, CEO of Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation, there were 67 million microcredit loan recipients throughout the world in 2002, while the number is rapidly increasing across Asia, Africa and Latin America. (MR)