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ACTIVITIES OF SIDI AND ITS PARTNERS IN 2006
Chairman’s
message
Christian SCHMITZ
Chairman of the board. Paris, May 29, 2007
guarantee mechanisms (against natural risks, poli-tical risks,…), by re-focussing attention on rural fa-mily businesses.
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There is a need to develop financing mechanismsthat protect the end beneficiaries against the riskof losses that may be incurred as a result of theloans being converted into local currency.
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We must foster a synergy with the dynamismgenerated by the corporate social responsibility ofthe traditional banks.
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We must strengthen the links between solidarityfinancing, fair trade and responsible consumerism.
I will now leave you to browse through this2006 activity report which will lead you todiscover just some of the facets of the acti-vities carried out by SIDI and its partners. Wehave tried to move forward together, main-taining a focus on the social importance and relevance (the process of social change, sus-tainability) of our actions.
Christian SchmitzChairman of the BoardDear Friends,The solidarity chain for financing has made slow but sureprogress once again this year! Thanks to you, we haveonce again been able to work together with our partnersin the South and the East and we have developed andstrengthened financing services adapted to meet withthe needs of the excluded in some thirty countries. Theroad towards solidarity may well be long, but it is alsocompelling, since the world is moving and changing. Inthe past, we always spoke about the North and theSouth, the rich countries and the poor countries. Ho-wever, the globalisation of the economy is now pro-gressively rendering this distinction obsolete. We arenow witnessing the gestation of the “one world”. TheNorth is extending towards the South! Certain coun-tries in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa andthe Middle East are in the process of joining the club ofthe “emerging countries” or even of the “so-called de-veloped” countries. However, at the same time, the thirdworld, or even the “fourth world”, is making inroadsinto all industrialised societies across the world.World wide growth is being accompanied by a certainform of redistribution of wealth amongst nations, but itis also leading to an increasing separation of the eco-nomic and the social. How can we understand and ac-cept this contradiction that would appear to be imposingitself both in the North and the South, as well as in theEast: the economy is performing better than it has donein the past and yet society continues to suffer as muchas it has in the past. How can we reconcile the economywith society? How can we reorganise the systems usedto redistribute wealth?For SIDI, the “chain of solidarity for financing” is thefoundation for all of our actions: developing shared sa-vings schemes, promoting responsible shareholding soas to create “patient investments” for the benefit of thepoorest members of society, providing local actions withthe time to flourish and to consolidate.It is thanks to the actions undertaken by the networks ofCCFD activists, the volunteers, the institutional and indi-vidual shareholders, the members of the ESD – EpargneSolidarité Développement –, the SIDI/CCFD correspon-dents, all of the alliances established across Europe andelsewhere, and thanks to each and everyone of you, thatwe are able to consolidate this chain of solidarity for fi-nancing through:
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The will to share risks, income and know-how,
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The will to perpetuate the provision of financial servi-ces and to ensure that these services are provided at thelowest possible cost for the end clients,
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The will to “position” solidarity financing within themajor forums for debate on the challenges of develop-ment, such as the World Social Forum in Nairobi in Ja-nuary 2007, so that States are not able to shirk theirresponsibilities with regard to education, health and in-frastructures.The economic upturn experienced in some countries ofthe South has not been without its problems. Indeed, itoften undermines the age-old socio-economic structures.Within these countries, we are seeing the creation of awealthy entrepreneurial bourgeoisie and the new middleclasses and millions of people are now gaining access tothe rich countries’ consumer society. However, in all ofthese countries, numerous poor populations who oftenlive in rural regions, far from the industrialised areas, areexcluded from this prosperity. It would appear that thereis also a real North-South conflict even within thesecountries…What can be done to reorganise the redistribution me-chanisms in order to “reconcile the economy and so-ciety, production and redistribution, competitiveness andsolidarity”?SIDI has been relentless in its efforts to be as innovativeas possible so as to seek out solutions that enable us tomove beyond microfinance in the strictest sense of theterm. Whilst continuing to focus on the implementationof the geographical and thematic priorities to which wecommitted as part of the 2006/2008 plan, we have alsoidentified a whole range of challenges for the forthco-ming 2009-2011 plan. We have already begun to dis-cuss these matters with the CCFD, who have already setout the main lines of their new orientation report for thenext few years.What can we do to ensure that microfinance does notbecome an objective in itself? How can we ensure thatit does not lose its sense of solidarity? What can we doto ensure that it does not merely become a new form of“business”? Microfinance enables a large number ofpeople who have a low income to make plans for the fu-ture and it would appear to be a useful driver of deve-lopment, but it is not enough. On its own it is not acure-all that is capable of bringing an end to poverty andto all forms of inequality, even though it has led to an in-creased awareness that people must rely on their ownefforts in order to develop their own economic activities,rather than waiting for short-lived external support.
Thereareagreatmanychallengestobefaced:
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There is a need to move away from microcredit that isnot based on solidarity and risk sharing, towards a soli-darity-based microfinance that seeks to extend its areaof intervention. A microfinance sector that forges al-liances so as to also be in a position to provide non-fi-nancial services to loan beneficiaries: literacyprogrammes, training in the management of SMEs,microinsurance, etc.
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Improvements need to be made to the modalities ac-cording to which services are provided: longer-term finan-cing, mechanisms that allow for the financing ofinvestments (equipment for use in rural areas, housing im-provements, access to renewable sources of energy, etc…),an approach adapted to young unemployed persons, …
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We must strive to provide better services to the poorlyserved rural areas, by adapting products, implementing
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