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The Sky is Falling-Run and Hide?
Ever since the financial sector crisis in America began, there's been a cloud of pessimism and fear reaching over the land. Here in Canada, I listen to business people talk about recession. Businesses big and small are cutting back on expenses, laying-off staff. The talk is even gloomier in the States. Many younger business people seem completely thrown off balance, while those of us a little older, look to be hunkering down to wait out the coming storm. What a great opportunity.
Surviving the “Contained Depression”
Interesting David Levy piece in the current issue of Institutional Investor. Here is the money ‘graf(s):
Credit Crunch vs Manufacturing and Construction
discussing the financial crisis and the emerging requirements of performance bonds
Top Salespeople Walk Away From Negative Talk During a Recession or Down Economy – Part 2
Top salespeople act and think in ways that they are less affected by negative talk during a down economy. Pick up a newspaper, turn on the television or listen to the radio during the slightest shift of our economy and the media will automatically suck you into their negativity. Top salespeople don’t let the media guide their thinking.
Top Salespeople Secrets to Success During a Down Economy: Crank Up The Thermostat During Recession Pep Talk.
Top salespeople act and think in ways that they are less affected by negative talk during a down economy. Pick up a newspaper, turn on the television or listen to the radio during the slightest shift of our economy and the media will automatically suck you into their negativity. Top salespeople don’t let the media guide their thinking.

Nigerian Government Creates $426m Microcredit Development Fund
Nigerian President Alhaji Musa Yar’Adua announced the creation of an N50 billion (the equivalent of over USD 426 million) microcredit development fund to be administered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The new fund will be used to provide existing microfinance institutions (MFIs) with funding for credit creation and operational expenses.

Facing and addressing the challenges as an SME in Kenya
The recent political and social skirmishes in Kenya have added an extra layer of challenges to the Kenyan business community, the SME sector being one of the worst affected. The reason I say this is unlike big business that have cash reserves that help them weather the storm, the SME sector commonly operates on working capital and day-to-day cash, the reserve that is there is primarily used to pay bills and source for new business.

SME Financing
On friday I had an interesting meeting with Mr.James Kachangati of FSDKenya, James is the head of GrowthFin and had been informed about TIDE from one of our partners, which aroused some interest from him. The meeting was to start at noon but I arrived at about half past after getting lost on my way there, nevertheless James was welcomed me and proceeded to brief me on what FSDKenya does.

Making Finance Work for Africa
South Africa’s success in getting the financial sector to extend services to poorer communities could be adapted for other African countries, said Trevor Manuel, Minister of Finance of South Africa. He told participants that this is exactly what has been achieved by South Africa’s Financial Sector Charter. The charter was developed some four years ago by the financial sector, including banks and insurers, after the government urged it to transform its practices and policies
Institutional and Operational Arrangements of Micro-finance Institutions
A large number of MFIs have set-up networks in many African countries taking advantage of increased pressure on governments to deregulate the economy and the financial sector, encourage competition in all sectors, and create the conducive environment for increased production.
Finance Matters for Poverty Reduction and Attaining the MDGs: Recent Empirical Evidence
Finance is an important component of development, including for poor people. Indeed, recent empirical evidence has shown that a more developed financial system can help reduce poverty and lower income inequality.
Financial Sector Development as an Essential Determinant for Achieving the MDGs: Increasing Private Credit Shown to Reduce Income Inequality
Whether or not one has access to private credit is a litmus test for wealth or poverty. If you're rich, you have it, and can use it to get richer. If you're poor, you don't have access to it, and you remain poor. Conventional wisdom suggests that building up the financial sector has little effect on this gap.

Microfinance - Where We Are Now: And Where We Are Headed
All of us who are involved in microfinance know that it is neither just nor economically tenable for financial systems in poor countries to serve only a tiny proportion of the population and exclude the vast majority. We are no longer alone in this. All over the developing world people are waking up to the fact that poor people need - and will pay for - a wealth of financial options, solutions and services, just like rich people. They are realizing that poor people represent a vast untapped market opportunity. And as a result we are witnessing poor people's finance becoming mainstream finance in most poor countries.

International Year of Microcredit Advisors Visit Kenya and Uganda: Princess Maxima, Diederik Laman Trip and Marilou van Golstein Brouwers Promote Microfinance on the Continent
In the third week of February 2005, The Netherlands' Princess Maxima, ING Netherlands Chairman Diederik Laman Trip and Triodos Bank Senior Fund Manager Marilou van Golstein Brouwers visited Africa to promote the International Year of Microcredit and the importance of microfinance in the global fight to eradicate poverty.

Improving business conditions - Increasing SME Access to Finance: A Four Pronged Approach
Improving business conditions, boosting the capacity of SMEs, expanding the financial sector and strengthening links between firms will permanently increase SMEs’ access to finance.
2.2 Sectoral performance IV: Economic Report on Africa 2007
The services sector

Other financial sector Related Articles

Ending poverty means abandoning charity and accepting reality
Benin Mwangi, who blogs about doing business in Africa, asked me recently: "should the discussion be about how to get the informal sector to become part of the formal sector or should it be how to cater to the informal sector?" This in an excursion into the morass of African poverty and development. The short answer is: neither; ending poverty has nothing to do with the informal sector.

2.2 Sectoral performance I: Economic Report on Africa 2007
African economies are experiencing a structural shift whereby the service sector is becoming an important driver of growth. In 2004, the service sector contributed 49 per cent of GDP growth compared to 36 per cent for industry (including mining and quarrying) and 15 per cent for agriculture. In 2004, all three sectors continued to grow, albeit at relatively low rates. The industrial sector had the highest growth rate at 9.05 per cent, although growth in the manufacturing sector fell by almost 3.8 per cent compared to 2003. Developments within each sector and for each subregion are discussed in more detail below.
4.0 The state of women’s enterprises in Tanzania: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005
Currently, there is no comprehensive data on the number of women in the MSME sector, the size of their enterprises, or their distribution by sector. Only proxies are available. In NISS (1991) women accounted for about 35 per cent of informal enterprises. By 1995, it was estimated that the proportion of women in the sector could have risen to 70 per cent of the informal sector labour force. In a 2000 Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) study, 55 per cent of the enterprises in the sample were owned by women (as reported in Mlingi, 2000, p. 89). Swisscontact (2003) estimated that women owned 43 per cent of MSEs.
1.0 Introduction: Microfinance in Africa - Experience and Lessons from Selected African Countries
Small enterprises and most of the poor population in sub-Saharan Africa have very limited access to deposit and credit facilities and other financial services provided by formal financial institutions. For example, in Ghana and Tanzania, only about 5–6 percent of the population has access to the banking sector. This lack of access to financial services from the formal financial system is quite striking, when one considers that in many African countries the poor represent the largest share of the population and that the informal sector is an important part of the economy.
2.3 Looking for Financial Sustainability: Microfinance in Africa - Experience and Lessons from Selected African Countries
The technologies described above, based on the formalization of informal techniques and on group-based instruments, have been used to promote financial sustainability of MFIs. They have the advantage of addressing a number of problems faced by financial institutions when operating with the poor or with the informal sector, for example, asymmetry of information, lack of collateral, and difficult enforcement of legal rights.
Unleashing entrepreneurship: Making business work for the poor
There has been a big change in the United Nations's engagement with the private sector influenced by its stewardship of the Millennium Development Goals. It was the urgent need to enhance the contribution of the private sector in achieving the MDGs that prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint a commission to examine how the role of the private sector in this major global effort could be maximized.

Making Finance Work for Africa
South Africa’s success in getting the financial sector to extend services to poorer communities could be adapted for other African countries, said Trevor Manuel, Minister of Finance of South Africa. He told participants that this is exactly what has been achieved by South Africa’s Financial Sector Charter. The charter was developed some four years ago by the financial sector, including banks and insurers, after the government urged it to transform its practices and policies
JPMorgan Launches Social Sector Finance Unit to Bring Financial Services to Microfinance and Social Enterprises
JPMorgan, a US-based global financial services firm with assets of USD 1.5 trillion and operations in more than 50 countries, has announced the launch of a Social Sector Finance (SSF) unit within its Investment Bank.

About.com’s Martin Murray’s post “Non-Profit Organization Suing ERP Supplier” A Sign of the Times?
In a white paper that I had written in 2007 titled “SAP Procurement for Public Sector” I had highlighted how the challenges with failed ERP-centric initiatives extended beyond the public sector to include the private sector. The difference as one senior Colgate-Palmolive executive told me shortly after scrapping a failed program was that “unlike the public sector in which a failed initiative becomes front page news, private sector company ERP failures rarely make a blip on the media’s collective radar screen.” The lack of media awareness notwithstanding, the frequency of failures in the private sector is comparable to the number of setbacks that occur in the public sector.
The Revised Payment of Gratuity Act - A Boon for Private Sector Employees
Employees of private sector organizations have a reason to smile. Government of India will be revising the ceiling on gratuity payable and increase it from 3.5 lakh to 10 lakh rupees. The main behind considering this revision proposal has been to bridge the disparity between private sector and government sector employees.
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