ACCION International, a microfinance organization founded in 1961, launched a new hub office and training center in Accra, Ghana, with the aim to expand financial services for Africa’s poorest populations. The new center will offer support to East and West African microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the form of education and training to increase capacity. According to the press release, ACCION’s goals are to train 3,000 microfinance practitioners in such disciplines as business planning, risk management, lending and governance; all through its training center network.
ACCION has an extensive history of microfinance work in African countries since 2000. MFIs in Uganda (Uganda Microfinance Limited), Benin (PADME), Zimbabwe (MicroKing), and Tanzania (Akiba Commercial Bank) were all aided or built through ACCION projects. More recently, ACCION Microfinance Bank (AMfB) was launched in Nigeria as a part of The Greenfield microfinance initiative -a partnership between International Finance Corporation (IFC) and KfW Development Bank that aims to create seven new microfinance institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years. Also, ACCION and its West African partner Ecobank launched EB-ACCION Savings & Loans to serve microentrepreneurs in Ghana.
María Otero, president and CEO of ACCION, explained the larger vision, “ACCION’s goal within the next three years is to double the number of poor entrepreneurs it helps to reach worldwide with microfinance from three million to six million people.”
ACCION was founded in 1961 and issued its first microloan in 1973 in Brazil. In the last decade, ACCION partners have disbursed more than 22.4 million loans totaling $17.4 billion with 97 percent of the loans repaid. ACCION has also been awarded Charity Navigator’s highest rating — four stars — for efficiency and sound fiscal management, for the second consecutive year.
Microcapital previously wrote about microfinance in Zambia; to read click here.
To read Microcapital’s story on ACCION’s 5.2m investment in Akiba Commercial Bank click here.
Microcapital also covered some of the struggles faced in Benin by PADME; to read click here.
To read Microcapital’s write up on Maria Otero, click here.
Original press release available here.
Scott Everett, Research Assistant
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