2009: YEAR IN REVIEW
Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our supporters and visionary microfinance partners, we at Unitus have much to celebrate in 2009. By helping strengthen and grow our partners on the ground, millions of families' lives have been transformed by microfinance this past year.
Here are our top efforts in 2009:
- Dramatic Growth: Our MFI partners (the local providers of microfinance) extended microfinance to more than 3 million new clients in 2009—that’s more than 2,500 families reached every day!
- Improving Impact: We rolled out the Ultra Poor Initiative to stimulate innovative new strategies for MFIs to serve the very poorest in their communities, and the Social Performance Management Implementation Project to better track and increase the effectiveness of microfinance products and services.
- Africa Expansion: We opened an East Africa regional office and launched a microfinance leadership development program to energize and elevate the next generation of microfinance visionaries in the region. We also welcomed Yehu Microfinance in Kenya as a Unitus partner and performed in-depth country scans in Rwanda and Uganda to search out ambitious, high-potential microfinance partners.
- Best and Brightest: The 2009 Unitus Leadership Summit in Mussoorie, India brought together 27 representatives from our amazing microfinance partners, spanning six countries and three continents, to gain insight into industry trends, share progress, and cross-pollinate strategies and best practices. Partners departed the three-day conference with defined steps toward a broad array of organizational improvements.
- Building Capacity: Unitus conducted nearly 80 microfinance consulting engagements with MFIs around the world to help them build capacity and overcome barriers to reaching even more of the world’s working poor.
Thank you to all of our supporters! We look forward to continuing our efforts in 2010 to empower the world's working poor and scale microfinance to the millions still waiting.
