homehome
why a year? who's involved resource library get invovled media office search
search
woman selling fish
sign up for our email newsletter
submit
 
quote collection
Kofi Annan
Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah
Nane Annan
Her Royal Highness Princess Mathilde of Belgium
Mark Malloch Brown
Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
Dominic Sasia Malusi
Dirk Jan Van Den Berg
Sultan Al-Mahmoud
Stanley Fischer
Marilou van Golstein Brouwers
Clara Hernández
Mbanda
Diana Medman
José Antonio Ocampo
Natalie Portman
Raghuram G. Rajan


Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General
"The great challenge before us is to address the constraints that exclude people from full participation in the financial sector. The International Year of Microcredit offers a pivotal opportunity for the international community to engage in a shared commitment to meet this challenge. Together, we can and must build inclusive financial sectors that help people improve their lives."

back to top

 
Rania Al-Abdullah

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Emissary for the International Year of Microcredit 2005
FINCA International Board Member
"For many years now, I have been impressed by the power of a simple, small loan to those for whom fate and circumstance have resulted in disadvantage. Maintaining peoples integrity and showing them trust, whilst facilitating a way for them to rebuild their own lives is such a meaningful way of alleviating poverty. By placing microfinance in the global spotlight, awareness of this most effective anti-poverty tool will undoubtedly, and thankfully, increase."

back to top

   
Nane Annan

Nane Annan, lawyer, painter, and wife of the UN Secretary General
"I have been inspired by the many women who have told me their stories with a sense of pride and achievement. Despite being poor and women, somebody had believed in them and offered them access to credit, often very small amounts. I hope the International Year of Microcredit will give even more women access to microfinance services, enabling them to fulfill their hopes and dreams for themselves and their families."

back to top

   
Princess Mathilde

Her Royal Highness Princess Mathilde of Belgium
Emissary for the International Year of Microcredit 2005
"The Year of Microcredit will highlight how women's talents and innovation, together with access to credit and savings can give them the power to make long term investments in their families, communities, and their children's lives."

back to top

   
Mark Malloch Brown

Mark Malloch Brown, Chef de Cabinet, Office of the Secretary General to the United Nations
Microfinance is much more than simply an income generation tool. By directly empowering poor people, particularly women, it has become one of the key driving mechanisms towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, specifically the overarching target of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015."

back to top

   
H. E. Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations Chairman of the Second Committee (Economic and Financial)
"Our experiences point that providing the poor with microcredit results in asset creation, employment generation, economic security and empowerment of the poor, particularly the women. We have reaped enormous benefits from microcredit in improving our social sector indicators . . . The International Year of Microcredit in 2005 will present us with an excellent opportunity to highlight the efficacy of microcredit in combating poverty."

back to top

   
Dominic Sasia Malusi

Dominic Sasia Malusi, supermarket owner - Kenya
"Since I was 11 years old, I have wanted to be an entrepreneur. With the loans provided by K-Rep Bank I have been able to realize my business plans. Now I run this supermarket."

back to top

   
Dirk Jan Van Den Berg

H.E. Mr. Dirk Jan Van Den Berg Permanent Representative, The Netherlands Mission to the United Nations
"Microcredit and microfinance will however reach the maximum number of poor clients only when it is recognized as a national priority and integrated into the financial sector. Our goal is far beyond extending more credit to more poor people. Our goal is to figure out how to work together in partnership to build financial sectors that work for everyone and in particular for those that are trying desperately to climb the economic ladder to get out of poverty."

back to top

   
Sultan Al-Mahmoud

Mr. Sultan Al-Mahmoud, Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations
"Member States, as well as, the United Nations, International Financial Institutions, private sector, civil society all have a partnership role to play in forwarding microfinance. The International Year of Microcredit will be a special occasion for giving impetus to microcredit and microfinance programmes in all countries, particularly in the developing world. The Year provides us with an excellent opportunity to show-case best practices, share ideas on new and innovative uses of microcredit and microfinance schemes in broadening the choices for the poor."

back to top

   
Stanley Fischer

Stanley Fischer, Governor, Bank of Israel, Chair, Advisors Group for the International Year of Microcredit 2005
"Estimates of the number of poor people in the world who use microfinance range from 70 million to 750 million. One of the goals of the International Year of Microcredit is to improve statistics on the nature and scale of the penetration of microfinance. But the essential goal is to strengthen and spread the availability of good financial services, which offer the possibility and the hope to many poor people of improving their own situations through their own efforts."

back to top

   
Marilou van Golstein Brouwers

Marilou van Golstein Brouwers, Senior Fund Manager, Triodos Bank
Zeist, The Netherlands

Advisor for the International Year of Microcredit 2005
“One of the most distressing consequences of globalization is the increase in the wealth of a few while hundreds of millions of people still live in poverty. However, microfinance is a powerful tool to begin to change that.”

back to top

   
Clara Hernández

Clara Hernández, grocery store owner-
Mexico

"Our earnings have gone up with the loans," smiles Clara. "Now we are more independent."

Photo credit:
Rohanna Mertens for ACCION International

back to top

   
MBanda

Mbanda, artisan - Mozambique
"I can work more, knowing that I am going to sell my product. My life has improved because of the large international orders that I am receiving. I earn a lot more money than I did selling in the local market!"

back to top

   
Diana Medman

Diana Medman, Director, AO Bioprocess
Moscow, Russia

Advisor for the International Year of Microcredit 2005
"Founding the Russian Women's Microfinance Network enabled me to pursue gender equality and poverty eradication throughout Russia. As an Advisor to the International Year of Microcredit 2005, I'm pleased to be a part of the overall effort to provide microfinance to poor and low-income people, which gives women everywhere the power to play more prominent roles in their communities."

back to top

   
José Antonio Ocampo

José Antonio Ocampo, Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs
Co-Chair, Coordinating Committee for the International Year of Microcredit 2005
"Efficient financial systems are vital for the prosperity of a community and a nation as whole. To ensure that poor people are included in the benefits of development, it is necessary that these vast numbers have consistent access to financial services, access that can translate into a key element of economic growth and poverty alleviation: options."

back to top

   
Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman, Actress
Spokesperson for the International Year of Microcredit 2005
FINCA International Ambassador of Hope
"Microcredit is about giving hope. When you're talking about making loans to women whose income is less than $1 a day, you can easily make the leap to see what a microloan can make possible. The women I've met in Uganda and Guatemala are so resourceful, and it's just amazing to see how, with their courage and diligence, they create small businesses with such tiny amounts of money. These women work so hard, and they manage to pay off their loans, and the first thing they do is educate and feed their kids. It's amazing that the world is not investing more in this resource."

back to top

   
Raghuram G. Rajan Raghuram G. Rajan, Economic Counsellor and Director, Research Department International Monetary Fund
Advisor for the International Year of Microcredit 2005

"People, poor and rich, need reliable financing so that their ideas can be brought together with assets to generate long-run sustainable growth. The two key ingredients to a well-functioning market economy are competition and access, competition so that performance keeps improving and access so that everyone has a chance to participate and nobody's talents are wasted. In the coming Year of Microcredit, we will focus on access to finance, for after all, people, poor and rich, need reliable financing so that their ideas can be brought together with assets to generate long-run sustainable growth."
   
  back to top
Ambassador Joël Wassi Adechi, Benin

Ambassador Joël Wassi Adechi, Benin
"The provision of financial services to poor and low-income people is of tremendous importance to the Least Developed Countries of the world."
more quotes
consider this