by the MicroCapital Team - Africa, Deals, Events, Investment Funds, Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance (SAM) -

SPECIAL REPORT: SIDI Credits the SAM Investors’ Fair with Seeding Partnerships with Emerging MFIs in Burundi, Ethiopia, Mozambique

During the SAM (Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance – African Micro­­finance Week in French) in October, the 2021 Investors’ Fair will build on the 2019 Investors’ Fair, during which 120 microfinance institu­tions (MFIs) and 24 investors met in over 500 “speed-dating” sessions to explore whether they might be compatible partners. Of the MFIs, which represented 24 countries, about half were for-profit firms, and about half were organized as cooperatives or NGOs.

At the 2019 event, Altemius Millinga, the Managing Director of Tanzania’s Yetu Microfinance Bank, told MicroCapital that the Investors’ Fair “was the best part of the SAM because I was able to interact with investors, while at the same time sharing experiences immediately with other MFIs. The SAM gave me the opportunity to meet investors and make several preliminary proposals on funding; it was surely worth the investment!”

FEFISOL, an Africa-focused fund launched by SIDI, has had a presence at all four of the SAM Investors’ Fairs to date, and its repre­sentatives will return this year. The CEO of SIDI, Dominique Lesaffre, reports that his institution has leveraged the Investors’ Fair not only to develop relation­ships with “successful institutions such as Centenary Bank in Uganda or Kafo Jiguinew in Mali – with their massive social-financial outreach – but also with emerging MFIs such as Microbanco Confiança of Mozam­bique, Ishaka of Burundi and Buusaa Gonofaa of Ethiopia.”

Edmund Higenbottam, the Managing Director of Verdant Capital, also cited the diversity of MFIs at the Investors’ Fair. He said his firm “is looking forward to meeting leading and emerging micro­finance companies from different parts of Africa at the SAM, and we hope to be able to provide them with differentiated and flexible funding solutions from our specialist funds business.”

Oikocredit Regional Manager Yves Komaclo said, “We were delighted to participate in the Investors’ Fair at the SAM 2019 in Ouagadougou, as we had done in previous ADA conferences. We had the opportunity to meet a range of institutions – developing, mature, with a rural focus or generalist – that helped us to not only identify new trends and under­stand their financial and technical needs but also to build a pipeline of exciting new leads. The Investors’ Fair is also the right environment for us to connect with our MIV and DFI colleagues, thus facilitating future collaboration and joint operations. We look forward to the upcoming event in Kigali!”

Philippe Guichandut, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation’s Head of Inclusive Finance Development, notes, “The SAM, organised by ADA, is a unique opportunity for the Grameen Crédit Agricole Founda­tion to meet its African partners, which represent more than half of the MFIs it supports worldwide and more than 40 percent of its portfolio.” In addition, at each of the SAMs, the Foundation organ­izes a meeting with the partners it supports through the African Facility technical assistance program, which is financed by AFD. The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation has been a partner of SAM since the Dakar event in 2015, and Mr Guichandut considers, “the biannual meeting a great oppor­tunity to offer training on themes that are close to our hearts, such as micro­insurance or the integration of refugees through entre­preneur­ship.”

The Netherlands-based fund manager and advisor Triple Jump has participated in each of the SAMs since the first one in 2013 – originally by sending staff to attend and more recently as a sponsor. Olivier Deiters, the firm’s Regional Manager for Africa & the Middle East, sees the SAM as an “African platform that facilitates formal and informal meeting spaces for all microfinance industry stakeholders at one venue. We believe it is an important event to build connections and learn about the latest industry practices.” For example, during the SAM 2019, Triple Jump staff met a representative of the MFI Agora Zambia at the Investors’ Fair, begin­ning a successful partnership that remains ongoing. Mr Deiters adds that, “Triple Jump’s African Team is very much looking forward to participating again at the SAM in Rwanda. Not only is this a great platform to meet prospective investees and many of our peer investors, but this event will also be the first time since the start of the pandemic to meet all the industry stakeholders again in person!”

This feature is part of a sponsored series on the SAM 2021, which is organized by the Luxembourgish NGO ADA, the Microfinance African Institutions Network (MAIN), the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) and the Association of Microfinance Institutions in Rwanda (AMIR), with the support of the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs of Luxembourg and the Government of Rwanda. The event is scheduled to take place from October 18 to October 22 in Kigali, Rwanda. MicroCapital has been engaged to promote and document each of the SAMs since 2015.

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