Fondo Para el Desarrollo, Inc. (FONDESA), a microfinance institution operating in the Dominican Republic, has signed a partnership agreement with the Cisneros Foundation, a Venezuelan private philanthropic institution. The agreement will center on the Dominican town of Miches, which is primarily dependent on tourism as its main revenue source. The strategic alliance between the two groups will present a cooperative approach to further the areas of education and microfinance in the town.
The Cisneros Foundation focuses on social responsibility programs and the cultural promotion of Latin America. Established in 1960, it is a charitable subset of the Cisneros Group of Companies, a privately held worldwide media enterprise based in Venezuela. Financial information for the Foundation is not available. The Cisneros Group has 70 companies located in 39 countries and reported revenues of nearly USD 4 billion in 2005. Exact number of funds received by the Cisneros Foundation from its parent company is difficult to obtain.
Fondo Para el Desarrollo, Inc. (FONDESA) is an NGO founded in the Dominican Republic in 1983 and opened its first branch to clients in 1998. It lends to microentrepreneurs in rural and urban areas of the country. It reports to the microfinance information exchange (MIX Market), and declared USD 5.8 million in assets in the year 2000. More recently, it has reported a 65 percent increase in its loan portfolio in 2006. The fund’s assets grew from DOP 227.6 million (USD 6.5 million) in 2005 to DOP 351.4 million (USD 10 million) by the end of 2006. It disbursed DOP 384.0 million (USD 10.93 million) in microcredit in 2006—an increase of 59.6 percent over the previous year. FONDESA also increased its client base, and as of the end of 2006 serves more than 10,400 clients in the Dominican Republic.
By Yrenilsa Lopez, Research Assistant
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