RIO DE JANEIRO – A Peruvian credit union, a Nicaraguan foundation that provides microcredit and an NGO that works with farmers and communities in some of the poorest areas of Brazil on Monday night received the Inter-American Development Bank’s annual prizes for microenterprise development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The IDB also awarded its prize for social entrepreneurship to Oded Grajew, founder of the Ethos Institute, a Brazilian organization that champions corporate social responsibility.
The winners received the awards from Rio de Janeiro City Strategic Planning Director Cecilia Castro and IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias at ceremony held during the 5th Inter-American Forum on Microenterprise.
“By highlighting the success achieved by these organizations and leaders in the field of microenterprise development, the IDB seeks to recognize the efficiency and the sustainability of microfinance institutions, business development services organizations and social entrepreneurs that contribute to the development of microenterprise in the region and generate job opportunities for people in the most disadvantaged groups of society,” Iglesias said.
Microenterprise, he added, plays a key social and economic role in Latin America and the Caribbean. Some 110 million people in the region work in these businesses with less than 10 workers.
In closing, Iglesias also commended two leading Brazilian financial institutions, Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES) and Banco do Nordeste.for their decades of work and efforts in favor of Brazil’s development.
The three-day forum was organized by the IDB’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Division and sponsored by BNDES, Banco do Nordeste and Serviço Brasileiro de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas. The event, which ends on Wednesday, has brought together more than 1,200 participants from institutions that support microenterprise development in the region.
Award Winners
- Caja Municipal de Ahorro y Crédito de Arequipa (CMAC). This Peruvian credit union won the Excellence in Microfinance Award for Regulated Institutions for its leadership, its innovations in client services and its remarkable financial performance. CMAC-Arequipa serves more than 100,000 small and micro clients through its 13-agency network in southern Peru and has plans to expand to Lima. Its chairman, Alejandro Casis, received the award. (www.cmac-arequipa.com.pe)
- Fundación para el Apoyo a la Microempresa (FAMA). This Nicaraguan foundation won the Excellence in Microfinance Award for Non-Regulated Institutions for its solid performance, which allowed it to overcome the upheaval triggered by Hurricane Mitch. FAMA boosted its efficiency and maintained its profit margins by tailoring its services to its clients’ needs after the hurricane. Its deputy manager, Juan Alvaro Munguía, and its general manager, Víctor Tellería Gabuardi, received the award. (www.fama.org.ni)
- Visão Mundial. This Brazilian NGO won the Excellence in Business Development Services Award. Through its Comercio Justo y Solidario fair trade program, it provides technical assistance, training and marketing services to small farmers and establishes direct sales channels between producers and markets inside and outside Brazil. Visão stands out for its strong management, its efforts to provide sustainable services, the high quality of its technical assistance and its defense of children’s rights. Executive Director Serguem Jessuí Machado received the prize. (www.visaomundial.org.br)
- Oded Grajew, founder and president of the Ethos Institute of Social Responsibility in Brazil, won the IDB’s Social Entrepreneurship Award for his efforts to raise the private sector’s awareness of its social responsibility to support the needy, the environment and community development. Through the Ethos Institute, Grajew works with businesses to help them adopt the principles of socially acceptable corporate behavior and develop ethical policies and practices to guide their relations with consumers, investors and communities. He is also president of the Abrinq Foundation for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, founded in 1990 to support programs to eradicate child labor. (www.ethos.org.br)