Plenary Sessions

You can download the presentations of the plenary sessions by clicking on the name of the speaker

European Café

As in a typical “café”, participants were seated by group of 6 – 10 people to discuss the main issues for growth in the microfinance sector in Europe. People were requested to respond to the challenges linked to growth by sharing their views and plans for the future. They were also asked to draw up short recommendations that was presented to EMN and to the audience.

Opening Key-Note speech

  • Speakers : Fouad Abdelmoumni (Al Almana - Morocco); Diederick Laman Trip (Council of Microfinance - The Netherlands)

Plenary1 : “Which Business Models for growth in Europe?”

The growth of microfinance in Europe has followed different paths using different models according to the specificities of each country and reaching different results. The plenary session explored how the sector has tried to grow in three European countries, namely in Italy, in Spain and in the United Kingdom, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each model.

Award Ceremony

For the first time ever, the Giordano Dell’Amore foundation announced the winner of three awards on innovation and good practices. One of the awards was for International microfinance programmes, another one for Italian microfinance programmes and the last one for European Microfinance programmes. The winner of the 2009 European Microcredit Research Award was also officially announced. 

Presidential debate

An interactive debate featured three speakers who had a limited time to answer specific questions related to the growth of the microfinance sector in Europe. The audience was asked to vote for the candidate whom they thought expressed the most relevant view.

  • Moderator: Philippe Guichandut (EMN – France)
  • Candidates:
    • Marc Schublin (EIF - Luxemburg)
    • Daniele Ciravegna (Ritmi – Italy)
    • Maria Nowak (Adie - France)

Plenary 2 : “How to reach the thousands of people at the bottom of the pyramid and be sustainable, within the current context of the financial and economic crisis?”

The current economic and financial crisis has started to impact the growth of the sector. More and more people are losing their jobs and could potentially be interested in starting or developing their own business. The plenary session explored how microfinance can be an opportunity to reach the socially excluded self-employed and microentrepreneurs and what the challenges are that the organisations face in responding to the new demands.

  • Moderator: Maria Doiciu (Eurom Consultancies – Romania)
  • Speakers: Faisel Rahman (Fair Finance – UK); Antoine Saint-Denis (DG EMPL – European Commission); Jean-Michel Servet (Université de Genève – Switzerland)