SPECIAL REPORT: Microfinance Investment Vehicles, MFIs “Speed Date” at SAM Investor’s Fair in Ethiopia

Both the “speed dating” and “free meeting” sessions for microfinance institutions (MFIs) to sit down with investors were very popular at SAM Conference 2017, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia the SAM (Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance) conference in Addis Ababa. Representatives of dozens of organizations met each other for the first time and renewed old connections.

Duncan Frayne of Switzerland-based Symbiotics Group spoke on behalf of REGMIFA (the Regional MSME Investment Fund for Sub-Saharan Africa), for which his company serves as investment manager. He said, “The value for me is meeting up-and-coming MFIs as well as swapping notes with peer investors. I can quickly get plugged in across multiple regions, which is very valuable because we have investments in 22 countries.”

Asked about the Investor’s Fair at the last SAM in Senegal in 2015, Mr Frayne said, “There are a few MFIs that we made first contact with in Dakar with which we since have closed deals.”

This feature is the last in a sponsored series on the third SAM, which ran from October 9 to October 13 in Addis Ababa. It was organized by ADA, an NGO based in Luxembourg, with the support of Luxembourg’s Ministry for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, in partnership with Microfinance African Institutions Network (MAIN), African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA), African Microfinance Transparency (AMT), the Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions (AEMFI) and Kenya’s Association for Micro-finance Institutions. MicroCapital was engaged to report on-site from the event.

Sources and Additional Resources

2017 SAM Conference
http://www.microfinance-africa.org/en/SAM

Coverage of the 2017 SAM in Addis Ababa and the 2015 SAM in Dakar by MicroCapital
https://www.microcapital.org/category/semaine-africaine-de-la-microfinance-sam/