Princess Maxima releases report on Community-Owned Microfinance Institutions in India

Microfinance Focus: Releasing a study on Cooperative-owned or managed microfinance institutions in New Delhi on Monday, Princess Maxima,Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, sought to know the reasons behind the failure too, if any.
The study by sector specialists Girija Srinivasan and N. Srinivasan on six microfinance institutions has examined and recommended suggestions to make COMFIs more successful.
The study was based on six case studies of community owned institutions and the finding s included the best practices, challenges and made recommendations for future institutions that would come up in the sphere of community ownership of MFIs. The issues examined related to initial mobilisation, creation of suitable legal structure, leadership, management and governance, professionalising external linkages and sustainability.

Speaking on the occasion Pierre Hedel, Managing Director Rabobank Foundation said, “with a market share of 150 million farmers, the Indian microfinance sector is considerably more developed compared with other emerging countries. In the past couple of years, Rabobank Foundation and Rabo India Finance Limited have done considerable work in this sector.”
Rabobank Foundation, the knowledge partner of the Microfinance India Summit 2009 has commissioned the study, “Community-Owned Microfinance Institutions: Enabling double bottom-line impact”.
Vipin Sharma, CEO of ACCESS Development Services, said, ”community based microfinance organisations have a new meaning in the current sectoral context where’s there’s overdue emphasis on commercialization of the sector and rapid scale. “