In October, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation invested for the first time in South Africa with the microfinance institution Phakamani Foundation. The Phakamani Foundation is a microfinance institution that empowers poor women to succeed at microenterprise. The Phakamani’s microenterprise programme is modelled on the internationally renowned Grameen Bank. Its system of training, group borrowing, and on-going support brings both accountability and practical assistance to the development of the microenterprises.
The programme targets rural and peri-urban areas with very high unemployment. The neediest people within these communities are identified by using a household index, an asset test, and a basic interview. Women who may be interested in starting their own microenterprises are invited to learn about Phakamani’s programme. To date, the institution has over 31,000 female clients all located in rural areas and manages a portfolio of nearly € 3 million.
A second investment in South Africa is being finalised in favour of SEF, a microfinance institution that serves 197,359 active borrowers (99% of women).
To strengthen its action and commitment to the energy transition, Crédit Agricole has adopted a Group climate strategy, aligned with the Paris Agreement, which will be rolled out by all of its entities. Through this strategy, the Group aims to make green finance one of its levers for growth. In this context, Crédit Agricole is the first major bank to make the exit of coal a climatic imperative.
The exposure of the Group’s portfolios to coal industry will be in line with a full-fledged coal phase-out by: 2030 for EU and OECD countries; 2040 for China; 2050 for the rest of the world.
As of 2019, Crédit Agricole will:
Disclose our coal exposure on an annual basis.
Ask companies to provide us by 2021 with a detailed phasing out plan of their coal-sector mining and production assets.
No longer develop business relations with corporations generating more than 25% of their turnover in the thermal coal sector.
Stop working with corporations currently developing or planning to develop new thermal coal capacities along the entire value chain.
Companies failing to subscribe to this approach will be automatically placed in a “transition watch list” portfolio and subject to the reduction or even the freezing of our financial support.
The point in pictures with Eric Campos, Head of CSR of Crédit Agricole S.A. and Managing Director of the Grameen Crédit Agricole SA Foundation
The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation Friends Club is an area open exclusively to employees of the Crédit Agricole Group who are interested in the activities and mission of the Foundation. It is a Club of information sharing and debates organised throughout the year with the Foundation’s partners.
To mark the end of the year, a meeting is organised on November 28th at the Crédit Agricole Campus in Montrouge. Come chat with the General Delegates of three Corporate Foundations that will discuss the action and impact of Foundations, which bring innovation to the company and society.
The event is exclusively reserved for employees of the Crédit Agricole Group. To register, please contact carolina.herrera@credit-agricole-sa.fr
Created in 2008, under the joint impetus of the directors of Crédit Agricole S.A. and Professor Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Grameen Bank, the Grameen Crédit Agricole SA Foundation is a multi-business operator that contributes to the fight against poverty through financial inclusion and entrepreneurship with a social impact. As an investor, lender, technical assistance coordinator and fund advisor, the Foundation supports microfinance institutions and social enterprises in nearly 40 countries.
From 20 to 25 October, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation brought together in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), 22 African microfinance institutions (MFIs), partners supported within the framework of the African Facility, a scheme set up in 2013 by the Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation and the French Development Agency (AFD) to support a larger number of rural MFIs in sub-Saharan Africa.
On October 20th, the 42 representatives of the partner institutions met with the Foundation’s teams in order to assess the African Facility over the past year, welcome the new beneficiaries of the programme and share the best practices of the different institutions that attended, before meeting with representatives of AFD and Proparco present in Ouagadougou.
Participation in the African Microfinance Week
The African Facility partners also had the opportunity to participate in ADA’s African Microfinance Week (SAM 2019) from October 21st to 25th. Open to all microfinance practitioners, SAM is a common African platform for reflection and exchange among all stakeholders in the sector to accelerate in a sustainable manner both financial inclusion and economic growth of the continent.
This event aims to facilitate exchanges between microfinance professionals and foster synergies at regional and international level. With this in mind, the Foundation organized a training course on Adaptation of MFIs to climate change that brought together more than fifty professionals, mainly from Africa, concerned by the fact that the variations and the difficulty in predicting the climate put at risk the livelihoods of microfinance borrowers, and thereby threaten the future ability of MFIs to operate in rural areas.
Represented by Philippe Guichandut, Director of Inclusive Finance Development, the Foundation also spoke at a round table on the state of the art of the inclusive finance sector and its contributions to the SDGs in Africa.He stressed, among other things, the challenges linked to the financial inclusion of refugees, the challenges of digital finance as well as the importance of financing small farms which remain at the heart of the Foundation’s concerns.
Launched by the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, Crédit Agricole SA and CA Center-est, Centimes solidaires aims to finance entrepreneurship projects by mobilizing employees. On November 4, Rania, an entrepreneur and Syrian refugee supported by the operation, shared her experience during a launch event on the Montrouge Campus.
An exceptional meeting
The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, Crédit Agricole S.A. and Crédit Agricole Centre-Est are pursuing the Solidarity Cents Campaign which will take place from November 18 to 22 at the Montrouge, Saint-Quentin and Lyon campuses.
To launch the 2019 edition of the campaign, Crédit Agricole welcomed on November 4, on the Montrouge Campus, Rania, entrepreneur and Syrian refugee financially supported thanks to the 2018 campaign. After leaving Syria and thanks to the ICI Project (Incubation, Creation, Inclusion) of Entrepreneurs du Monde funded through Solidarity Cents, Rania launched her catering service to share the traditional dishes of her country.
In 2019, the campaign scales up!
Launched in 2018, Solidarity Cents aims to finance entrepreneurship projects by mobilising Crédit Agricole employees who are invited to donate 50 cents when paying for their meals in collective restaurants.
Thanks to the support of Crédit Agricole employees, € 7,000 were donated to Entrepreneurs du Monde in 2018 to finance the ICI Project which supports entrepreneurship projects for refugees, single parents and homeless people in Lyon. A total of 20 training courses were organised, which allowed the programme team to train 18 people in the entrepreneurship field.
This year, once again, the beneficiary of this campaign will be Entrepreneurs du Monde. The campiagn will take place in parallel at the Crédit Agricole Campuses in Montrouge, Saint-Quentin and Lyon from 18 to 22 November. Crédit Agricole S.A., the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation and Crédit Agricole Centre-Est will embrace the generosity of their employees by contributing to the collection. For the years to come, Entrepreneurs du Monde’s objective is to reach a larger number of beneficiaries, that is a total of 40 project leaders by the end of 2019 and 50 in 2020.
Watch the video of the operation which presents Rania’s journey and the testimonies of the staff who participated in the operation.
More information: carolina.herrera@credit-agricole-sa.fr
Created in 2008, under the joint impetus of the directors of Crédit Agricole S.A. and Professor Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Grameen Bank, the Grameen Crédit Agricole SA Foundation is a multi-business operator that contributes to the fight against poverty through financial inclusion and entrepreneurship with a social impact. As an investor, lender, technical assistance coordinator and fund advisor, the Foundation supports microfinance institutions and social enterprises in nearly 40 countries.
The Smart Campaign is a global initiative to incorporate strong client protection principles into the financial inclusion industry. The Smart Campaign’s Client Protection Certification programme publicly recognizes those institutions providing financial services to low-income households whose standards of care uphold the Smart Campaign’s seven Client Protection Principles. These principles cover such important areas such as pricing, transparency, fair and respectful treatment and prevention of over-indebtedness.
The certification programme contains a rigorous set of standards against which institutions are evaluated by independent, third-party raters that are licensed by the Smart Campaign. The raters are established, specialized rating agencies with extensive experience, having analyzed hundreds of institutions to date.
In 2019, in addition to the action of Chamroeun, partner of the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation since 2010, this initiative also publicly recognised the action of two other microfinance institutions, partners of the Foundation, as Client Protection Certified for meeting strong standards of client care: Musoni (Kenya) and Salym Finance (Kyrgyzstan).
These institutions join almost 120 others in over 40 countries that have been certified since the programme was launched in January 2013.
For further information about Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation partners, please click here.
To launch the 2019 edition of Solidarity Cents, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, Crédit Agricole SA and CA Center-est welcome on November 4, on the CA Campus in Montrouge, Rania, A Syrian entrepreneur and refugee supported through the operation.
After leaving Syria and thanks to the ICI Project (Incubation, Creation, Inclusion) of Entrepreneurs du Monde funded via Solidarity Cents, Rania was able to create its catering service to discover the traditional cuisine of her country. Come to exchange with Rania and taste her culinary specialties.
Solidarity Cents
Launched in 2018 by the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, Crédit Agricole SA and CA Center-Est, Solidarity Cents aims to finance entrepreneurship projects by mobilizing Crédit Agricole employees who are invited to donate 50 cents when they pay their meals at the CA Campuses restaurants.
Thanks to the support of Crédit Agricole employees, € 7,000 were paid to Entrepreneurs du Monde in 2018 to finance the ICI Project, which supports entrepreneurship projects for refugees, isolated parents and homeless people in Lyon.
This year, the beneficiary of the operation will be Entrepreneurs du Monde again. The operation will run in parallel at the Crédit Agricole Campuses in Montrouge, Saint-Quentin and Lyon from November 18 to 22.
The event is exclusively reserved for employees of the Crédit Agricole Group. To register, please contact carolina.herrera@credit-agricole-sa.fr
OSHUN, a partner of the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, is a social start-up that aims to guarantee access to clean water to everyone, especially in developping countries.
OSHUN was created from the alliance of three French companies, each one leader in their respective fields, with the idea of adopting a social approach while having the framework and rigor of entrepreneurship.
The Providence technology developed by OSHUN is unique. In addition to answer all the problems related to the potabilisation of the water, the Providence technology is autonomous in energy, easy to transport and to maintain, connected in real time, and payable numerically at a fair price.
In Senegal where the company operates, OSHUN is 1 000 000 liters of water produced and distributed during the first year of activity, 65 rural jobs created in one year, 65% of them occupied by women, and a decrease in waterborne diseases of 30% in adults and 80% in children.
Created in 2008, under the joint impetus of the directors of Crédit Agricole S.A. and Professor Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Grameen Bank, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation is a cross-business actorthat contributes to the fight against poverty through financial inclusion and entrepreneurship with a social impact. As an investor, lender, technical assistance coordinator and fund advisor, the Foundation supports microfinance institutions and social enterprises in nearly 40 countries.
The Smart Campaign, a global initiative to incorporate strong client protection principles into the financial inclusion industry, has publicly recognised Chamroeun, partner of the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation since 2010, as Client Protection Certified for meeting strong standards of client care. The institution joins more than 115 others in over 40 countries that have been certified since the programme was launched in January 2013.
“We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Chamroeun,” said Isabelle Barrès, Director of the Smart Campaign. “Their willingness to do the work it takes to prepare for and undergo the intensive process of evaluation is indicative of their deep commitment to their clients. They have shown that this bar is achievable in the area of client protection. Their example will catalyze a movement towards certification within the broader industry.”
The Smart Campaign’s Client Protection Certification programme publicly recognizes those institutions providing financial services to low-income households whose standards of care uphold the Smart Campaign’s seven Client Protection Principles. These principles cover such important areas such as pricing, transparency, fair and respectful treatment and prevention of over-indebtedness. The certification programme contains a rigorous set of standards against which institutions are evaluated by independent, third-party raters that are licensed by the Smart Campaign. The raters are established, specialized rating agencies with extensive experience, having analyzed hundreds of institutions to date.
Chamroeun has long demonstrated a commitment to client protection. Prior to undergoing certification, the institution was evaluated by the Smart Campaign on its practices and contributed to the development of Campaign tools to help advance the sector.
Launched in 2013 by the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) [French Development Agency], the “Take-off Facility for agricultural and rural microfinance in Africa” (African Facility) aims to support microfinance institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. After a successful first phase (2013-2016), with 16 funded partners and € 6 million in disbursed loans, the second phase of the program will support 25 rural microfinance institutions.
With the coordination of the Foundation, AFD financing for Phase II is structured around 3 elements: a loan of € 6 million for the credit activity; a € 2.2 million grant for technical assistance; and an ARIZ portfolio guarantee to cover 50% of the credits granted.
The results of Phase II
Phase II of the program already has 22 microfinance institutions supported (including 10 new ones), which at the end of June 2019 represent more than 400,000 active borrowers, 70% of whom are women and 66% live in rural areas.
In terms of technical assistance, beyond the tasks related to the reinforcement of financial management and risks, new themes are integrated into the program, such as social performance management, microinsurance, digitalization and green microfinance. In addition, 79 technical assistance missions were launched. Furthermore, the 29 microfinance institutions’ Managers and Directors received a scholarship to participate in the Boulder training in Turin in 2017 and 2019.
Finally, all institutions confirmed their participation in the Facility Partners’ Forum organized in October 2019 in parallel with the African Microfinance Week in Ouagadougou. This will be an opportunity to make a point of step of the impact of the program and strengthen the links between the partners supported.
