WHO’S WHO IN MICROFINANCE: Anne Hastings of Haiti’s Fondasyon Kole Zepol (Fonkoze)

Anne Hastings is the Executive Director of Fondasyon Kole Zepol (Fonkoze), Haiti’s largest microfinance institution (MFI). Fonkoze or “Haiti’s Alternative Bank For the Organized Poor” has 34 nation-wide branches with total assets of USD 6.7 million as of December 31^st 2007. According to its MIX Market Profile, at year end 2007, Fonkoze had 20,916 active borrowers and 30,509 active savers. Fonkoze also offers microinsurance with Alternative Insurance Company (AIC), a Haitian insurance company.

Anne Hastings joined Fonkoze in 1996; two years after its inception by founder Joseph Philippe. Ms. Hastings was waiting for an assignment from the Peace Corps when she was connected to Philipe and became part of Fonkoze as the executive director. When she joined Fonkoze the MFI was being run by two volunteers. It now has 400 full-time employees. In 2004, Ms. Hastings helped to establish Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze, S.A (Fonkoze Financial Services, Inc), Fonkoze’s sister company for its commercial microfinance operations. Ms. Hastings also heads the Fonkoze Foundation which provides social services for Fonkoze clients, such as education, and helps in the development of new Fonkoze products.

Though Ms. Hastings is a microfinance professional she admits that microfinance alone is not enough but that “helping the poorest to make their way out of poverty requires the integration of microfinance, education and health care services.” Therefore, in conjunction with the educational services of the Fonkoze Foundation, Ms. Hastings recently launched a program called Chemen Lavi Miyò (CLM) and established a health care partnership. The health care partnership was launched in 2004 with Zanmi Lasante, the Haitian project of Dr. Paul Farmer’s international non-governmental organization Partners in Health (PIH) to provide rural healthcare services to Fonkoze clients.

The CLM program was launched as a result of Ms. Hastings’ belief that in Haiti the poorest of the poor, who have no productive assets at all, can not at their initial level of poverty benefit from microcredit. CLM (the Pathway to a Better Life) recently began with 150 pilot families. Ms. Hastings’ program includes 18 months of training, health care, and “income generating assets”. Examples of these assets would be goats or seeds that could help the recipient begin a microenterprise. Fonkoze will provide the equivalent of USD 920 per family to facilitate the program. Ms. Hastings recently spoke on the program at an event in entitled “Accompanying The Poorest Out Of Poverty: The Effect Of The Global Food Crisis” as reported by MicroCapital here.

In 2005, she received the Grameen Foundation USA’s Pioneer in Microfinance Award and, in 2006, she was honored in the First Annual Chiapas Project Recognition Dinner. In May 2008 she received the Women Together Award at United Nations as reported by MicroCapital here.

Ms. Hastings received her PhD from the University of Virginia and in 2007 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Business Leadership from Duquesne University. From 1982-1985 she worked at Advanced Technology in Virginia as a senior Analyst and from 1985-1996 she was a Senior Partner and Managing Director of management consulting firm Scanlon and Hastings.

She can be contacted at director@fonkoze.org.

By Sarah Knapp, Research Assistant

Fondasyon Kole Zepol (Fonkoze): Chemen Lavi Miyò, MIX Market Profile, Newsletter Fall 2004

Global Giving Matters: Microlending and healthcare in Haiti offer opportunities for social investment

Grameen Foundation GF Celebrates Women on the Front Lines of Microfinance

MicroCapital.org: Anne Hastings of Fonkoze to Appear at Joint Microfinance Club of New York and Women Advancing Microfinance Event, Anne Hastings of Haitian Microfinance Institution Fonkoze Receives Women Together Award at United Nations, Central Bank of Enid Oklahoma Partners with Haitian Microfinance Institution Fonkoze to Provide Low Cost Remittances

Zanmi Lasante: Partners in Health, Partnership