Aspiring for inclusivity in 2023
Published Jan 2, 2023 12:05 am
FROM THE MARGINS
New Year’s Day is the most celebrated holiday. But it is also a day of introspection. On this day, people remember the achievements and challenges of the outgoing year, and look forward to new beginnings promised by the new year.
As 2022 closes, I also found myself reflecting on the sad fact that seven in 10 adult Filipinos do not have access to financial services. It is tragic that financial exclusion is prevalent among people who need finance the most: the poor, the unemployed, the less-educated. It is unacceptable that senior citizens, migrant workers, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, forcibly-displaced persons, and those in agriculture and MSMEs are financially excluded.
How do we address this situation? Talking with colleagues in the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, Inc. (MCPI) brings hope.
Voice of the industry
MCPI is the national network of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and support organizations that advocate sustainable, innovative, and client-responsive solutions to poverty. Its key programs include advocacy, capacity-building, and knowledge management. According to its executive director, Allan Robert Sicat, their 64 members currently reach nine million clients with a ₱70 billion loan portfolio, covering 90 percent of the Philippine microfinance industry.
MCPI has long been the voice of the microfinance industry in the country. It evolved out of the USAID-funded ‘Developing Standards for Microfinance Project’ (DSMP). The MFIs that were part of the DSMP formed a coalition and registered as MCPI in 1999.It became a lobby group not only for favorable government policy, but also the adoptionof microfinance standards. Its contribution to the agenda of reaching the poorest of the poor via microfinance cannot be gainsaid. This includes: Capacity-building programs for MFIs; Covid-19 vaccination campaign and recognition of MFI workers as frontliners; spearheading the Citi Microentrepreneurship awards, which has evolved into the Digital Financial Inclusion Awards; sharing of best practices; and organizing meetings with the banking community to help members gain wholesale funds to support their operations.
MCPI also lobbied for the passage of the Microfinance NGO Act into law, to gain preferential tax rates. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Microfinance NGO Regulatory Council (MNRC) awarded MCPI as Good Corporate Governance Champion from 2020-2022, while the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) recognized it as Financial Inclusion Partner in 2013-2015.
Aspirations for 2023
MCPI is currently focused on helping MFIs and microenterprises recover from the pandemic, assisting MFIs with their MNRC accreditation, and promoting compliance with microfinance standards. But its newly-elected chairman, Gilbert “Gomby” Stephan Maramba, says that it is not just recovery that they are looking into in 2023, but innovations. That is, better ideas, new service channels and more.
“This coming 2023 will be a unique year for all of us,” says Gomby. “My hope is that MCPI as a whole, with other non-MCPI-member MFIs, will be able to work together and share our learnings and innovations during the pandemic to help our sector emerge even stronger.”
The new MCPI leadership plans to expand membership. “For MCPI to remain the voice of the microfinance industry,” Gomby explains, “it should continue to gain new members. Not just NGOs but also banks and cooperatives. To do this, we must increase our value and capacity to serve more MFIs.”
Gomby also sees the need for MCPI to gather and publish more information about the organization, its membership, and the microfinance sector. Lastly, he wants to expand their capacity-building programs to train not just those in management positions, but loan officers and other field personnel.
MCPI’s expansion will also not be limited to geographic expansion, or offering of more financial products to serve different segments of their target clients. Gomby believes their member-MFIs will expand their non-financial services, such as health, education, environment-friendly business practices, business development, and others.
According to Gomby, this is because during the pandemic, they learned that “in fighting poverty there could be better success if we also help decrease our members’ vulnerability.”
We can help
As we close off another eventful year, let us start the next one off right – thinking not just of ways to improve our lives but those of our less fortunate kababayans.
In our own little ways, we can help provide access to opportunities and resources for people who are financially and socially excluded. We can lead our children on the path to financial and social responsibility by giving them options on what to do with the cash gifts they received last Christmas. We can empower our workers with financial literacy trainings that could transform their lives. We can join or support coops, MBAs, NGOs, or microfinance-oriented financial institutions that serve the poor. There are many ways, such as buying local and supporting MSMEs.
We can help MCPI’s advocacy. We can all do our part to push for greater inclusivity in 2023!
“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”-T.S. Eliot
(Dr. Jaime Aristotle B. Alip is a poverty eradication advocate. He is the founder of the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Mutually-Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI), a group of 23 organizations that provide social development services to eight million economically-disadvantaged Filipinos and insure more than 27 million nationwide.)
New Year’s Day is the most celebrated holiday. But it is also a day of introspection. On this day, people remember the achievements and challenges of the outgoing year, and look forward to new beginnings promised by the new year.
As 2022 closes, I also found myself reflecting on the sad fact that seven in 10 adult Filipinos do not have access to financial services. It is tragic that financial exclusion is prevalent among people who need finance the most: the poor, the unemployed, the less-educated. It is unacceptable that senior citizens, migrant workers, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, forcibly-displaced persons, and those in agriculture and MSMEs are financially excluded.
How do we address this situation? Talking with colleagues in the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, Inc. (MCPI) brings hope.
Voice of the industry
MCPI is the national network of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and support organizations that advocate sustainable, innovative, and client-responsive solutions to poverty. Its key programs include advocacy, capacity-building, and knowledge management. According to its executive director, Allan Robert Sicat, their 64 members currently reach nine million clients with a ₱70 billion loan portfolio, covering 90 percent of the Philippine microfinance industry.
MCPI has long been the voice of the microfinance industry in the country. It evolved out of the USAID-funded ‘Developing Standards for Microfinance Project’ (DSMP). The MFIs that were part of the DSMP formed a coalition and registered as MCPI in 1999.It became a lobby group not only for favorable government policy, but also the adoptionof microfinance standards. Its contribution to the agenda of reaching the poorest of the poor via microfinance cannot be gainsaid. This includes: Capacity-building programs for MFIs; Covid-19 vaccination campaign and recognition of MFI workers as frontliners; spearheading the Citi Microentrepreneurship awards, which has evolved into the Digital Financial Inclusion Awards; sharing of best practices; and organizing meetings with the banking community to help members gain wholesale funds to support their operations.
MCPI also lobbied for the passage of the Microfinance NGO Act into law, to gain preferential tax rates. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Microfinance NGO Regulatory Council (MNRC) awarded MCPI as Good Corporate Governance Champion from 2020-2022, while the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) recognized it as Financial Inclusion Partner in 2013-2015.
Aspirations for 2023
MCPI is currently focused on helping MFIs and microenterprises recover from the pandemic, assisting MFIs with their MNRC accreditation, and promoting compliance with microfinance standards. But its newly-elected chairman, Gilbert “Gomby” Stephan Maramba, says that it is not just recovery that they are looking into in 2023, but innovations. That is, better ideas, new service channels and more.
“This coming 2023 will be a unique year for all of us,” says Gomby. “My hope is that MCPI as a whole, with other non-MCPI-member MFIs, will be able to work together and share our learnings and innovations during the pandemic to help our sector emerge even stronger.”
The new MCPI leadership plans to expand membership. “For MCPI to remain the voice of the microfinance industry,” Gomby explains, “it should continue to gain new members. Not just NGOs but also banks and cooperatives. To do this, we must increase our value and capacity to serve more MFIs.”
Gomby also sees the need for MCPI to gather and publish more information about the organization, its membership, and the microfinance sector. Lastly, he wants to expand their capacity-building programs to train not just those in management positions, but loan officers and other field personnel.
MCPI’s expansion will also not be limited to geographic expansion, or offering of more financial products to serve different segments of their target clients. Gomby believes their member-MFIs will expand their non-financial services, such as health, education, environment-friendly business practices, business development, and others.
According to Gomby, this is because during the pandemic, they learned that “in fighting poverty there could be better success if we also help decrease our members’ vulnerability.”
We can help
As we close off another eventful year, let us start the next one off right – thinking not just of ways to improve our lives but those of our less fortunate kababayans.
In our own little ways, we can help provide access to opportunities and resources for people who are financially and socially excluded. We can lead our children on the path to financial and social responsibility by giving them options on what to do with the cash gifts they received last Christmas. We can empower our workers with financial literacy trainings that could transform their lives. We can join or support coops, MBAs, NGOs, or microfinance-oriented financial institutions that serve the poor. There are many ways, such as buying local and supporting MSMEs.
We can help MCPI’s advocacy. We can all do our part to push for greater inclusivity in 2023!
“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”-T.S. Eliot
(Dr. Jaime Aristotle B. Alip is a poverty eradication advocate. He is the founder of the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Mutually-Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI), a group of 23 organizations that provide social development services to eight million economically-disadvantaged Filipinos and insure more than 27 million nationwide.)