For 12 years, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation has positioned itself as a player committed to the fight against poverty by promoting financial inclusion and social impact entrepreneurship. With more than 200 million euros in funding and over 100 organisations supported in some forty countries since inception, the Foundation has been able to build a solid history in the field of inclusive finance, particularly microfinance, financial engineering, financing of family agriculture and support for social entrepreneurship.
To promote good practices and contribute to the advocacy of the sector, the Foundation shares its experience through various publications, organises events and exchanges with other key players in the field of inclusive finance. This is why the Foundation has decided to share its main leading articles published since 2018 in this new publication “Taking the floor: Advocacy for a more inclusive and sustainable economy”.
For this first edition, this document is organised around four chapters with topics that marked our sector:
- The first chapter contains general reflections on the need to shape a more inclusive economy.
- The second one shares our various experiences on the development of rural areas, in particular, by supporting impact entrepreneurship.
- The third chapter presents more specifically the work of the Foundation on the programme for the financial inclusion of refugees launched with the UN Refugee Agency and the Swedish Cooperation.
- The last chapter focuses on the impact of the global economic crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic on microfinance institutions and their clients and the action of the Foundation to coordinate a concerted approach by donors, investors and others microfinance players to support the sector.
The “Raison d’Être” of Crédit Agricole is Working every day in the interest of our customers and society. With this publication, the Foundation fully plays its advocacy role to support microfinance, impact entrepreneurship and to shed light, alongside other key stakeholders, on good practices for a more inclusive, responsible and sustainable economy.