Carlos M. Jarque, Manager, Sustainable Development Department, Inter-American Development Bank

In Closing

For enterprises worldwide, these are times of opportunity and challenge—it is not even necessary to mention words like globalization or competitiveness for most readers to know exactly what the opportunities and challenges refer to. The opportunities are plenty for those enterprises that can apply the latest technology or production methods and find ways to accommodate new markets. But the challenges are equally plenty for those enterprises that are slower to adapt to these new trends; this is true for many microentrepreneurs, and especially in rural or semi-urban areas that have less access to information, credit and markets.

The Bank has spent a bit more than a quarter century supporting the microenterprise sector in the region, and continues to firmly believe that the economic progress and development within the region should and will to a very large extent include microenterprises. However, microenterprises need support and encouragement on various levels, and so the theme for the VII Forum on Microenterprise quite easily came from the idea that with the sharing of responsibilities and combining of efforts, with vision and initiatives stemming from the public and private sectors alike, a real potential can exist for allowing many micro and smaller producers to overcome the challenges of a changing climate, and to enjoy the opportunities for economic growth and improved livelihoods.

The dedication of last year's forum to examples of "shared responsibilities in a changing climate" brought to light many excellent experiences showing how public/private partnership, or partnerships between larger and smaller producers, networks, targeted investments with social objectives, or initiatives offering opportunities not otherwise available to enterprises accomplish just that: sharing responsibilities.

Luckily, the Bank is not alone in coming up with new and innovative ways of supporting the growth and competitiveness of micro and small producers; increasingly, civil society organizations, NGOs, other donors, and last but not least the private sector, are stepping up to the plate and pulling resources to bring micro and small producers center stage in activities to enhance productiveness and growth, to share the responsibilities for improving the businesses and livelihoods for all. These players have long realized that far from being just social in character, activities that focus on the productivity and resourcefulness of microenterprises are good business and carry long-term prosperity.

In fact, the contribution of microenterprise development to increasing economic growth and alleviating poverty has been recognized by the United Nations as an important tool to meeting the Millennium Development Goals, and UN declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit. The Bank is very pleased with this renewed focus on microcredit as a significant development tool, as it lends emphasis to the efforts of not only the Bank itself, but numerous other institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean that have worked tirelessly to introduce, develop, refine, and spread microcredit methodologies and best practices over many years.

However, we also need to recognize that we still have a long way to go. Studies show that although considerable progress has been made in developing even rather sophisticated instruments of microcredit and microfinance, these financial services still reach only a very limited number of potential beneficiaries. In order to truly and successfully contribute to the poverty alleviation, microcredit and microfinance must be made accessible and affordable to the vast quantities of currently underserved microentepreneurs: those living in semi-urban areas and smaller local or rural communities, those who are very poor, and those who belong to otherwise marginalized groups. This concern of reaching further out to geographical areas, and further down to poorer groups, will be the focal point of the VIII Forum on Microenterprise in 2005.