MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: CFI’s Africa Board Fellowship Accepting Applications from Microfinance Providers

The Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI), an affiliate of the US-based nonprofit Accion that promotes universal financial access, is seeking board members and CEOs of organizations that work toward financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa to enroll in its Africa Board Fellowship (ABF). The six-month curriculum is intended to help participants adopt best practices in areas such as governance, leadership skills and risk management. It also covers sustainable growth management, technology, succession planning, industry crises, conflict resolution, regulations, client protection and social performance.

Now in its third year, ABF begins and ends with three-day in-person seminars in the city of Cape Town, South Africa. In between the seminars in Cape Town, fellows will participate remotely in weekly assignments relating to: (1) peer-learning seminars; (2) one-on-one goal-setting sessions with their advisors; and (3) a virtual forum, which includes online training sessions as well as a discussion platform for the program’s fellows to interact with various subject-matter experts.

The sixth cohort of ABF is scheduled to start on October 17, 2018. You may express interest at: http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/abf/apply. For additional information, you may contact the program director, John Lwande, at jlwande[at]accion.org or +1 202 393 5113.

Established in 2008, CFI works with microfinance practitioners, regulators, banks, investors and academics in an effort to increase financial inclusion and promote client protection by connecting the microfinance community to capital markets, technology and advisory services. During 2017, Accion expended USD 6.2 million to support CFI.

The mission of Accion is to alleviate poverty through services such as microenterprise loans and business training. The NGO was founded in 1961 and issued its first microloan in 1973 in Brazil. Accion’s partner microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide loans entrepreneurs through 64 MFIs in 32 countries in Africa, the Americas and Asia. During 2016, the network disbursed USD 10.9 billion in loans, and its members held USD 4.2 billion in savings deposits as of December of that year.

By Nicholas Galimberti, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

Information provided directly to MicroCapital by Accion

ABF website
http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/abf/what-is-abf

CFI background
http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/about/who-we-are

MicroCapital Brief; February 7, 2016; Africa Board Fellowship on Financial Inclusion Accepting Applications Through February 29, 2016
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-africa-board-fellowship-on-financial-inclusion-accepting-applications-through-february-29-2016/

MicroCapital Brief; July 3, 2018; India’s RBL Bank Completes Ownership of Microfinance Institution (MFI) Swadhaar Finserve with Equity Purchases from Accion, Individual Investors
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-indias-rbl-bank-completes-ownership-of-microfinance-institution-mfi-swadhaar-finserve-with-equity-purchases-from-accion-individual-investors/

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