This story came to our attention through Microcapital. Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, the parent company of Ecobank, the leading regional banking Group in West and Central Africa serving wholesale and retail customers, and ACCION International a global microfinance network, announced their partnership to open microfinance banks in 20 African countries. Ecobank has a network covering 18 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sao Tome, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tchad and Togo, with plans to establish presence in East and Southern Africa. The Group has a network of over 320 branches and offices. The two institutions started their collaboration in December 2006. According to the Accion’s press release “ACCION will work with Ecobank to develop a regional banking platform that will deliver financial service products to micro- and small entrepreneurs in African countries within the Ecobank network. These products may comprise loans as low as $100, savings and insurance products, and related financial services, all designed to help lift people out of poverty. Over the next three to five years, ACCION will work with Ecobank to develop a comprehensive mix of tailored financial products that will be distributed through its existing branch network, and introduce alternative delivery channels such as ATMs, point-of-sale terminals and cell phone banking.”
Another partnership that is making sense.

Professor Yunus promoted the concept of “social business enterprises” in his Nobel Lecture delivered after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo yesterday.
The eloquent yet moving lecture portrayed the milestones of Grameen Bank and how microcredit has been lifting millions of people out of poverty. It also touches upon how technology is playing a major role (telephone ladies) in empowering people. Prof. Yunus in his continuing fight to make poverty history promotes a new type of enterprise which has as its objective to make a difference. These social business enterprises will be self sustainable, in his words “no loss, no dividend enterprises”. He refers to two types of such enterprises one having investors like the latest joint venture between Grameen and Danone, an enterprise providing fortified yoghurt to malnourished children. Investors will get their capital back, but, profits will be injected back to the company to continue to achieve its objective. The second type of social business enterprise is a for-profit model but owned by the poor such as Grameen Bank. The Lecture video is available on demand (the social business enterprise topic is covered between1:15 to 1:25).

Bank director Elizabeth Littlefield rejected Yunus’s criticism, at a microcredit summit in Canada this week, that “not even one percent” of the World Bank’s total lending goes to microcredit funding.
“That actually is quite a narrow definition of the World Bank’s spending in microcredit, it relates only to credit lines on lending to microcredit institutions,” she said.
The actual number “could be up to six percent of its total budget, about 1.3 billion dollars, if you use a much broader definition that includes credit lines, policy advice, payment systems, work on regulation and supervision as well.”
The above paragraph is taken from the CGAP press site and copyrights belong to AFP.
The reason why I am referring to this article is because although I agree with Yunus that the World Bank should do more, it would be so unfair to overlook the non-financial support and gigantic work and efforts of building the infrastructure for the microfinance industry that CGAP has been doing for the past 10 years.
Another press article about Elizabeth Littlefield that came out after the summit is “What is next for microfinance” Very good read.