Caribbean Microfinance Forum convenes in Barbados, 7-8 October 2009.

Microfinance practitioners from the CARICOM and representatives of several institutions engaged in the promotion of financial service provision, met in Bridgetown Barbados at the First Caribbean Microfinance Forum. The Forum was hosted jointly by the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter American Development Bank, the European Commission and the Caribbean Development Bank. Ms. Anneke Jessen, IDB Representative to Barbados and the OECS, Ambassador Valeriano Diaz, Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean and Mr. Peter Blackman of the Caribbean Development Bank gave opening remarks for the two day forum.

The Forum was an initiative of the Caribbean Microfinance Capacity Building Project, known in the region as the CARIB CAP. The CARIB CAP is a thirty months, US$ 3 million initiative aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Region’s micro finance industry http://www.caribcapmicrofinance.com/

More than 20 MFI’s from Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago participated in the event which, as one of the participants mentioned, was a great opportunity to broaden knowledge and to better understand what is happening in the world of microfinance. Institutions present included the Caribbean Development Bank, the European Commission, the IDB and the IDB Multilateral Investment Fund, MICRORATE, the MIX Market, the SEEP network and the Caribbean Technical Services Facility.

The Forum was organized by the Project Management Unit of the CARIB CAP, which is run jointly by DO Ltd. of Jamaica and Triodos Facet BV of The Netherlands. Ms. Maureen Webber of DO Ltd. and her team were instrumental in preparing the event and in making sure that it became a success. Stefan Platteau represented Triodos Facet in the preparation of the event and in its execution. During the first day he presided over the session called “CARIB CAP, before and after”. In this session he presented the state of the art of microfinance in the Caribbean and indicated the big gap that exists between the microfinance industry in the Caribbean and its peers in Latin America. The challenge to close this gap was further elaborated upon in the group work in which the participants were asked to express their views about the future of the MF industry in the region. The resulting paper from this session will be published on the CARIB CAP and Triodos Facet websites.

The Forum had three objectives.

• Bring together micro finance institutions who participate in the CARIB CAP Project, giving them the opportunity to exchange with the Project Management and with the rating agency in charge of their Performance Assessment.
• Enable practitioners of the Region to get access to good practices and introduce them to interesting initiatives like the MIX Market and a Project concerning Disaster Risk Management.
• Contribute to the creation of a sustainable network among Caribbean micro finance practitioners by promoting networking and showing that they have a lot to gain from further collaboration and exchange.

At the end of the two days, and after a review of the evaluation sheets, it is clear that participants were of the view that the three objectives had been met. Continued support of the CARIB CAP will enable them and the microfinance sector in the region to go beyond this and to gradually improve the industries efficiency and outreach.

To end with, the words of a participant “The meeting in Bridgetown was from my perspective inspiring and hopeful. The meetings were extremely well organized, focused and with logically clear goals – that of improving the capacities of MFI’s and of strengthening our own network the CMN. I believe that the Carib-Cap process will accomplish its task one way or another as we in the Caribbean Microfinance Community cannot continue being the poor cousins of our Latin American brethren.”

	First Caribbean          Microfinance Forum                7-8 October,         Bridgetown, Barbados

                           Stefan Platteau, Triodos Facet

Paper:  Microfinance in the Caribbean [309.56 Kb]

[Caribbean, ref. 3243; 2008-2011]