Jordan Times
Monday, September 20, 2004
Regional micro-credit summit to convene in Amman on Oct. 10
By Rami Abdelrahman
AMMAN — Planning and International Cooperation Minister Bassem Awadallah
announced on Sunday that the Middle East/Africa Region Micro-credit Summit
Meeting of Councils will convene in Amman between Oct. 10 to 13.
To be held under the patronage of Her Majesty
Queen Rania, the summit aims at finding solutions for poverty and unemployment
through providing the poor with financial means that would enable them to become
productive by starting their own micro-projects.
According to Awadallah, the summit would discuss steps to achieve the 1997
summit recommendations, including extending micro-credit loans to 100 million of
the world's poorest families by the year 2005 — a year to be declared by the
United Nations as the Micro-credit Year.
The minister said the summit's agenda include raising public awareness on
micro-credit loans as a tool to reduce poverty, introducing companies and
organisations providing such loans, as well as addressing the legislative
measures that should be enforced to support micro-credit. It will also put
strategies for fighting poverty in the Middle East and Africa.
Currently there are about 100,000 beneficiaries of micro-credit loans, 98 per
cent of whom are reported as meeting repayment schedules.
The planning minister said the government will soon be announcing the
establishment of the National Micro-Credit Bank, which will play the role of a
facilitator for micro-credit loan providers as well as extending loans itself.
The bank was registered at the Ministry of Industry and Trade with a JD10
million capital, out of which JD2.4 million are provided by the Arab Gulf
Programme for United Nations Development Organisations and by the King Abdullah
Fund for Development.