Informations générales

Welcome from the Microcredit Summit Campaign and the Association of Microfinance Institutions in Kenya

10 December 2009

Dear Friends of the Campaign,

At the Global Microcredit Summit 2006 held in Halifax, Canada, Former U.S. President Bill Clinton addressed the delegation by video remarking that “In my travels around the world, I see over and over again that intelligence and dreams and the willingness to work hard are evenly distributed throughout the world. But opportunity, investment, and systems that work are not evenly distributed.”

Close to one-fifth of the world’s population lives on less than US$1 a day, some 75 million children of primary school age are not in school, and some 25,000 children under the age of five die each day from largely preventable malnutrition and disease.

Since its establishment through the first Microcredit Summit held in 1997, the Microcredit Summit Campaign has been leading, supporting, and guiding the microfinance field to address this worldwide crisis. The 2006 Global Microcredit Summit extended the initial 9-year Campaign by launching a second phase with two new goals for 2015:

Working to ensure that 175 million of the world’s poorest families, especially the women of those families, are receiving credit for self-employment and other financial and business services. (With an average of five in a family this would affect 875 million family members.)

Working to ensure that 100 million of the world’s poorest families rise above US$1 a day adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). (With an average of five per family this would mean that 500 million people would have risen above $1 a day nearly completing the Millennium Development Goal on halving absolute poverty.)

From 7-10 April 2010, we expect 2,000 delegates from more than 40 countries to gather for the Africa-Middle East Regional Microcredit Summit in Nairobi, Kenya to assess progress toward the Campaign’s 2015 goals, share best practices, and accelerate innovation. We urge you to come to Nairobi and join the top leaders in the fight to end global poverty. We promise you will be surrounded by your fellow visionaries in action.

Sincerely,