This meeting was dedicated to the topic of social entrepreneurship and microfinance, with four eminent speakers presenting valuable experiences and initiatives.

Maria Nowak, founder of ADIE, Chairwoman of ADIE International and member of the Institute’s Strategic Advisory Board, gave an overview of the history of microcredit since the first microcredit operation in Western Europe in 1989 and in Eastern Europe in 1992. In today’s Europe, where 92.2% of enterprises employ fewer than nine people, microcredit is a tool for financing social entrepreneurship – which in turn is key to reducing poverty and unemployment. But, as Maria Nowak stressed in her presentation, the legal framework and the general mindset need to change if microcredit is to develop further and help fulfil Europe 2020’s goals of inclusive and sustainable growth (click here to see the presentation).

Pavel Velev, Executive Director of USTOI, presented how his MFI in Bulgaria is doing business with the smallest, helping microentrepreneurs gain access to financing (click here to see the presentation). Rémy Jacob, a member of its Board of Directors, described how ADA, which was started as an NGO by an EIB employee twenty years ago in Luxembourg, has grown into an executive agency under mandate dedicated to inclusive finance through agreements with 150 microfinance institutions reaching several million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America (click here to see the presentation). Finally, Bruno Gauthié presented ADIE’s new initiative, ADIE microfranchise, which offers unskilled people in France a turnkey business activity to be developed within a franchise network with a small initial investment. The initiative won first prize in the EIB Institute’s 2014 Social Innovation Tournament (click here to see the presentation).

Click here to see the booklet of the event.