A multicultural microfinance experience in Norway

The conference on “Microfinance and the Added Value of Multiculturality” was the culminating event of the INTI project which ended on December 19th 2006. It was held in Oslo on November 9th and 10th 2006. The conference also drew on the experience of the pilot project on Enterprise Creation for immigrants, carried out by Network Credit Norway (NCN) with five Norwegian partners and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion (AID). The 130 people who gathered from 16 countries included microcredit and business support practitioners from different countries, immigrant entrepreneurs, and politicians. Findings of the INTI and AID project were presented and good practice in business support, training, access to finance and policy measures was discussed, in order to enable society as a whole to better benefit from third country nationals’ entrepreneurial potential. The Minutes of the Conference and the Programme are available now.

Prior to the conference, the new, 2-day training on intercultural issues was delivered for the first time. It was devoted to basics of intercultural communication in the context of microcredit and business support, and on using this awareness to adapt the support for better dealing with people from different cultures. In this context, good practice can be seen as responding both to the expectations of the entrepreneur and to the requirements of the host society, with its values and norms. Intercultural awareness can help accept diversity and find creative solutions. Intercultural competence also helps to build trust and a good personal relationship with the entrepreneur. Interviews carried out with immigrants and advisors show that trust-building is a central issue, and key to successful lending, training and mentoring.

The project handbook shares the experience and findings collected by the partners in different countries. It presents a general background of immigrant entrepreneurship and different factors explaining its dynamism, but also the many barriers that immigrants need to overcome to set up and run a business. Their needs in terms of business support are identified, showing some discrepancies between their own expectations and the requirements as seen by expert practitioners. The handbook aims to put forth examples of practices and recommendations that respond to both.

A Project Proposal was submitted to the European Commission, with the aim to further promote immigrant entrepreneurs as a microcredit target group, particularly through training and awareness-raising of microlenders and their partners, and to contribute to create a better environment through a comparative study on policies affecting immigrant self-employment.