a:7:{s:8: »location »;a:1:{i:0;a:1:{i:0;a:3:{s:5: »param »;s:13: »page_template »;s:8: »operator »;s:2: »== »;s:5: »value »;s:18: »page-fondation.php »;}}}s:8: »position »;s:6: »normal »;s:5: »style »;s:7: »default »;s:15: »label_placement »;s:3: »top »;s:21: »instruction_placement »;s:5: »label »;s:14: »hide_on_screen »;a:1:{i:0;s:11: »the_content »;}s:11: »description»;s:0: » »;}
In recent months, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation has continued to expand its portfolio with new investments in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
It has thus granted a new loan to the microfinance institution Monte Credit in Montenegro, for an amount of 1 million euros over a period of 3 years. Monte Credit offers its clients mainly agricultural loans and loans for commercial activities, using the individual lending methodology. To date, the institution, which manages a portfolio of 7.4 million euros, has 4,600 clients, including 55% women. 56% of its clients are located in rural areas.
The Foundation also granted two new loans totaling €2.5 million to the Georgian microfinance institution Lazika, whose mission is to facilitate access to financial services tailored to entrepreneurs. With a portfolio of €14 million, the institution now has approximately 11,000 clients, including 471,000 women and 751,000 clients in rural areas.
Finally, the Foundation granted a new three-year loan to OXUS Tajikistan for €1.2 million. OXUS Tajikistan is a microfinance institution focused on operations in rural areas where more than 80,000 of its clients live and work. To date, the institution has 14,000 clients, including 39,000 women, and manages a portfolio worth €11.3 million.
With these new investments, the Foundation now has 16 partners spread across 7 countries in the region, representing a portfolio of outstanding loans of 16.6 million euros, or 19.81% of the total amount of outstanding loans monitored by the Foundation at the end of October.
© Philippe Lissac
The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation has signed a new financing agreement with Sénégalaise des Filières Alimentaires (SFA), a partner of the Foundation since 2013, in the form of an equity investment. With this new equity investment of €137,000, the Foundation is strengthening its support for SFA, a social enterprise that is developing an inclusive value chain based on the production and marketing of rice.
The SFA encourages the production of quality rice by smallholder farmers in the Senegal River Valley through a long-term partnership. It provides them with access to financing and technical support. The paddy is processed into white rice and sold on the Senegalese market under the Terral brand. The SFA thus contributes to Senegal's goal of self-sufficiency, which still imports 751,000 tons of the rice it consumes.
___________________________________________________________
Created in 2008, under the joint leadership of Crédit Agricole SA's management and Professor Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Grameen Bank, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation is a multi-sector operator that contributes to the fight against poverty through financial inclusion and social impact entrepreneurship. As an investor, lender, technical assistance coordinator, and fund advisor, the Foundation supports microfinance institutions and social enterprises in nearly 40 countries.
©Philippe Lissac/GODONG
The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation continues to expand its activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the signing of a new partnership with the microfinance institution Partner Microcredit Organization (Partner), to which it has granted an initial loan of €2 million over a period of three years.
Partner is a multi-ethnic organization founded by Mercy Corps in 2000. It was the first microfinance institution to operate in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Partner, one of the country's leading microfinance institutions, provides a range of business, agricultural, and housing loans through a network of approximately 30 branches. To date, the institution has over 40,000 clients, including 42% women and 87% rural clients, and manages a portfolio of nearly €70 million.
With this new partnership, the Foundation has three partners in Bosnia and Herzegovina and 16 partners in the Eastern Europe / Central Asia region, which represents nearly 20% of partners and 26% of outstanding loans monitored by the Foundation at the end of October 2019.
___________________________________________________________
Created in 2008, under the joint leadership of Crédit Agricole SA's management and Professor Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Grameen Bank, the Grameen Crédit Agricole SA Foundation is a multi-sector operator that contributes to the fight against poverty through financial inclusion and social impact entrepreneurship. As an investor, lender, technical assistance coordinator and fund advisor, the Foundation supports microfinance institutions and social enterprises in nearly 40 countries.
© FGCA
In France, nearly half (47%) of corporate foundations were created between 2000 and 2009, according to the latest National Survey on Funds and Foundations published by the Philanthropy Observatory of the Fondation de France. 43% of corporate foundations were created over the last 10 years, including 18 % between 2015 and 2017 (1). Corporate foundations are demonstrating dynamism and are becoming levers of innovation and transformation for companies.
As part of the meetings of the Circle of Friends of the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, the Evergreen Campus of Crédit Agricole SA in Montrouge welcomed three directors of corporate foundations on November 28th who came to present their careers but also and above all the commitments and impact of the foundations they manage.
Under the moderation of Eric Campos, General Delegate of the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, Miren Bengoa, General Delegate of the Chanel Foundation, Aurélie Bellemin, General Delegate of the Fondation Solidarités by Crédit Agricole Centre-est, and Viviane Olivo, General Delegate of the Fondation Crédit Agricole Nord de France, shared with the audience the objectives and values of their respective Foundations and their point of view on the impact of the work of corporate Foundations on the business world and on society as a whole.
To find out more:
CHANEL Foundation
Solidarity Foundation by Crédit Agricole Centre-est
Crédit Agricole Nord de France Foundation
© Plastic Odyssey
19 tons of plastic enter the ocean every minute. Yet this waste can be an invaluable resource! Making recycling this waste a profitable and job-generating activity: that's the challenge facing the Plastic Odyssey team. Merchant Navy officers, a sales manager, and an engineer, these young entrepreneurs decided to build an ambitious project to raise awareness about plastic waste recycling and share expertise with emerging countries.
For three years, the Plastic Odyssey team will sail the world's seas on a ship to fight plastic pollution. The expedition will stop in emerging countries to encourage local waste reduction initiatives and the creation of small recycling plants. At each stop, Plastic Odyssey will share low-tech and open-source recycling technologies to foster the development of micro-entrepreneurship and the circular economy. Training in plastic sorting and recycling will also be offered.
This project does not aim to collect plastic present in the oceans but to act upstream, by working with local populations on depollution solutions, so that land-based waste does not end up in the oceans.
The ship will be ready to sail in the second half of 2020. Measuring 40 meters in length, it will run on fuel made from plastic waste using a pyrolysis plant installed at the rear of the boat: a first in the field of navigation.
For 3 years, he will successively travel the coasts of Africa, Latin America, and Asia to raise awareness of plastic pollution in the oceans, encourage the reduction of plastic and its recycling, and transform plastic waste into resources.
The fight against plastic pollution is a concern that Crédit Agricole shares with Plastic Odyssey. The Group was already a partner of Plastic Odyssey in 2018, during the prototyping phase of the project. Crédit Agricole, through 16 entities(1), is continuing this commitment by supporting Plastic Odyssey's initiative with €1.2 million over 5 years. The support provided for this expedition is in line with the Crédit Agricole Group's Social Project.
___________________________________________
© Didier Gentilhomme
In October, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation made its first investment in South Africa, in the Phakamani Foundation. The institution provides financial products and services to poor women microentrepreneurs, enabling them to succeed in microenterprises. Phakamani's microentrepreneurship program is modeled after Grameen Bank. Its system of training, group borrowing, and ongoing support provides both empowerment and practical assistance for microenterprise development.
The Phakamani Foundation's program targets rural and peri-urban areas where unemployment rates are very high. The neediest people within these communities are identified using a household index, an asset assessment, and a baseline interview. Women who may be interested in starting their own microenterprises are invited to familiarize themselves with the Phakamani program. To date, the institution has more than 31,000 clients, all located in rural areas, and manages a portfolio of nearly €3 million.
A second investment in South Africa is being finalized with SEF, a microfinance institution with 197,359 active clients (99% women).
To strengthen its efforts and commitments to the energy transition, Crédit Agricole has adopted a Group climate strategy, aligned with the Paris Agreement, which will be implemented across all its entities. Through this strategy, the Group aims to make green finance one of its growth drivers.
To strengthen its efforts and commitments to the energy transition, Crédit Agricole has adopted a Group climate strategy, aligned with the Paris Agreement, which will be implemented across all its entities. Through this strategy, the Group aims to make green finance one of its growth drivers. In this context, Crédit Agricole is the first major bank to make phasing out coal a climate imperative.
There are several components to this commitment:
A picture update with Eric Campos, Director of CSR at Crédit Agricole SA and General Delegate of the Grameen Crédit Agricole SA Foundation.
© FGCA
The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation Friends Circle is a space open exclusively to Crédit Agricole Group employees interested in the Foundation's activities and mission. It is a forum for sharing information and holding discussions throughout the year with the Foundation's partners.
To mark the end of the year, a meeting is being organized on November 28th at the Crédit Agricole Campus in Montrouge. Come and interact with the Executive Directors of three corporate foundations who will discuss the work and impact of foundations, which drive innovation for business and society.
This event is reserved for Crédit Agricole Group employees. To register, please contact carolina.herrera@credit-agricole-sa.fr
___________________________________________________________
Created in 2008, under the joint leadership of Crédit Agricole SA's management and Professor Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Grameen Bank, the Grameen Crédit Agricole SA Foundation is a multi-sector operator that contributes to the fight against poverty through financial inclusion and social impact entrepreneurship. As an investor, lender, technical assistance coordinator and fund advisor, the Foundation supports microfinance institutions and social enterprises in nearly 40 countries.
From October 20 to 25, 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 mechanism set up in 2013 by the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation and the AFD to support a greater number of rural MFIs in sub-Saharan Africa.
On October 20, the 42 representatives of the partner institutions met with the Foundation's teams to take stock of the African Facility over the past year, welcome the new beneficiaries of the program and share best practices from the various institutions present, before meeting with the representatives of AFD and Proparco present in Ouagadougou.
The African Facility's partners also had the opportunity to participate in the African Microfinance Week (AMW 2019), organized by ADA from October 21 to 25. Open to all microfinance practitioners, the AMW is a shared African platform for reflection and exchange among all stakeholders in the sector to sustainably accelerate both financial inclusion and economic growth on the continent.
The aim of this event is to facilitate exchanges between microfinance professionals and foster synergies at the regional and international levels. With this in mind, the Foundation organized a training session on Adapting MFIs to Climate Change, which brought together more than fifty professionals, mainly from Africa, concerned by the fact that climate variations and the difficulty of predicting the climate are jeopardizing the livelihoods of microfinance borrowers, and thus threatening 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 roundtable discussion on the current state of the inclusive finance sector and its contributions to the SDGs in Africa. He highlighted, among other things, the challenges related to the financial inclusion of refugees, the challenges of digital finance, and the importance of financing small farms, which remain at the heart of the Foundation's concerns.
