The Microcredit Summit Campaign

About the Microcredit Summit Campaign

What is the Microcredit Summit Campaign?

What are the core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign?

How are institutions, other than microcredit lenders, contributing to the Summit’s goal?

How can I get involved with the Microcredit Summit Campaign?

What is the Microcredit Summit Campaign?

The first Microcredit Summit, held February 2-4, 1997, gathered more than 2,900 people from 137 countries in Washington, DC. They launched a nine-year campaign to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest families, especially the women of those families, with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the year 2005. That goal was very nearly reached and in November of 2006 the Campaign was re-launched to 2015 with two new goals:

1. Working to ensure that 175 million of the world's poorest families, especially the women of those families, are receiving credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the end of 2015

2.Working to ensure that 100 million families rise above the US$1 a day threshold adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), between 1990 and 2015.

The Campaign brings together microcredit practitioners, advocates, educational institutions, donor agencies, international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and others involved with microcredit to promote best practices in the field, to stimulate the interchanging of knowledge, and to work towards reaching our goals.

The Microcredit Summit Campaign is a project of the RESULTS Educational Fund, a U.S.-based grassroots advocacy organization committed to ending hunger and poverty. To find out more about RESULTS and its International Affiliates, click here.

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What are the core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign?

The core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign are:

Reaching the poorest [Click here for more on this theme]
Reaching and empowering women [Click here for more on this theme]
Building financially self-sufficient institutions [Click here for more on this theme]
Ensuring a positive, measurable impact on the lives of clients and their families [Click here for more on this theme]

To learn more about our core themes, you can read papers commissioned by the Microcredit Summit Campaign. You can also read the State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report, detailing the progress of the Campaign since 1997.

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Who are the poorest families?

The Microcredit Summit defines the poorest families in developing countries as the bottom 50% of those living below their country’s poverty line or those living on less than $1 a day adjusted for purchasing power parity. In the industrialized world, the Summit targets all those who live below the poverty line. Reaching 100 million of the world’s poorest families is only one step in eradicating poverty worldwide: currently, the World Bank estimates that 1.2 billion people (roughly 240 million families) are living on less than US$1 a day.

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Why target Women?

1.2 billion people are living on less than a dollar a day. Women are often responsible for the upbringing of the world’s children and the poverty of the women generally results in the physical and social underdevelopment of their children. Experience shows that women are a good credit risk, and that women invest their income toward the well being of their families. At the same time, women themselves benefit from the higher social status they achieve within the home when they are able to provide income.

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How are institutions, other than microcredit lenders, contributing to the Summit's goal?

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) providing social services such as literacy, health and family planning, are partnering with microcredit practitioners, or moving to incorporate microcredit training into their programming. Educational institutions provide the foundation for what we value as a global society; it is important that they educate students, the future leaders of the world, about the powerful potential of microcredit as an anti-poverty tool. Advocacy organizations can help build the commitment of the general public and of the world’s governments through fundraising, education, policy development and research focused on the Microcredit Summit’s goal. These are the contributions of just three of the fifteen councils that incorporate almost every sector of society.

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How can I get involved with the Microcredit Summit Campaign?

There are four steps to get involved in the Microcredit Summit Campaign.

You can subscribe to our new e-newsletter, Microcredit Summit E-News, and receive periodic informational updates via e-mail on the progress of the Campaign.

Your organization can join one of fifteen different Microcredit Summit Councils. To determine which Council your organization should join, click here.

After joining a Microcredit Summit Council, your organization should submit and implement an Institutional Action Plan. An Institutional Action Plan (IAP) outlines the work an organization has done and intends to do to further the goal and core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. Each Council Member is requested to submit an IAP annually. Please click here to access the Institutional Action Plan appropriate to your organization’s Council.

Your organization should look for other ways to contribute to the campaign, including enlisting other organizations to join the Microcredit Summit Campaign. E-mail us to request outreach materials you can send to interested organizations.

You may also contact us about opportunities to volunteer with the Microcredit Summit Campaign.

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