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> Posted by Center Staff
Book-writing is partly about voracious reading, Alex Counts reminds us on his blog, which chronicles the process of penning a book about Haitian microfinance pioneer Fonkoze.
Counts, the CEO of Grameen Foundation, most recently finished The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz (Rodale, 2009) and The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook by Rupert Scofield (McCraw Hill, 2011). (We previously gave a nod to Scofield’s book here on this blog. )
Counts joined other friends of Grameen Bank to set up Grameen Foundation in 1997. He was interviewed for the Center’s “Microfinance Matters” series. During his trips to Haiti, he has been meeting with microfinance industry leaders in general, and in particular with Fonkoze staff.
“Two Memoirs to Inspire and Educate Social Entrepreneurs,” his most recent post, begins:
I am returning from Istanbul, where I attended and spoke at a historic meeting of microfinance leaders from around the Arab World and from Turkey. A long layover in Amsterdam is giving me the opportunity to return to this blog while I prepare to head to Haiti via Washington and New York over the next two days. It has been a whirlwind fall for me, but my book on Fonkoze has never been far from my mind. Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank and my mentor, was the most recent person to ask me about it when we were driving to a university in Turkey where he gave a speech two days ago. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
Alex Counts captures the excitement at the Global Microcredit Summit in the latest post on his blog, the cyberspace outpost where he describes the process of writing a book about Haitian microfinance pioneer Fonkoze.
Counts, the CEO of Grameen Foundation, notes that Fonkoze “was, among participating organizations working in a single country, the one that received the most exposure to tell its story.”
Counts, who was interviewed for the Center’s “Microfinance Matters” series, joined other friends of Grameen Bank to set up Grameen Foundation in 1997. During his recent trips to Haiti, he has been meeting with microfinance industry leaders in general, and in particular with Fonkoze staff.
“Fonkoze at the Global Microcredit Summit,” his most recent post, begins:
The recent Global Microcredit Summit held in Valladolid, Spain brought significant new exposure to the innovations and accomplishments of Fonkoze. Anne Hastings spoke at the first substantive plenary (right after the ceremonial opening session), and followed that up with presentations at several workshops and finally well-received remarks at the closing plenary. Gauthier Dieudonne presented Fonkoze’s institutional action plan in a plenary alongside the head of CARE’s microfinance initiative, ACCESS Africa. (CARE is one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world.) Finally, Fonkoze Diaspora liaison Katleen Felix chaired a workshop while CLM regional director Steve Werlin presented an important paper that he had co-authored with Anne. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Steven Werlin
[The following post is Pt. II of a two-part series. In this post, Steven Werlin explains what his organization, Fonkoze, is trying to accomplish through group microfinance. The first part, by Beth Rhyne, appeared on November 17, 2011.]
It is easy to imagine solidarity-group microcredit as a method that both minimizes the costs an MFI faces in making its loans and protects the institution from risk. It’s easy to imagine both those things, because they are both true.
Using groups to makes loans means that the loans can be delivered and reimbursements collected at central locations without the borrowers’ having to come in to a branch. The borrowers save much of the direct transportation cost they would otherwise be stuck with if they live far from a branch, and the branch saves mileage because its loan officer doesn’t have to find each borrower individually. Borrowers and loan officers meet halfway, in a credit center.
The group also significantly reduces the lender’s risk. Group members can be held responsible for one another’s delinquent payments. Their need to vouch for one another means they are likely to choose fellow-members carefully, selecting friends whom they believe to be good risks. And making members agree on the size of each loan can protect against the over-indebtedness responsible for many write-offs. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
Alex Counts finds himself reflecting on patriarchy in the latest post on his blog, where he chronicles writing a book about Haitian microfinance pioneer Fonkoze.
I sense that part of what feels liberating to work as a woman in Fonkoze is not getting ones strengths “stripped out” and seeing one’s ability to contribute “dry up” as often happens in patriarchal (i.e., “normal”) organizations. (At the same time, I have been wondering how my own organization, Grameen Foundation, and others that I am associated with score on this spectrum, and on the experiences of women staff at all levels.)
Counts, the CEO of Grameen Foundation, notes Fonkoze’s “culture rooted in strong female leadership.”
Counts, who was interviewed for the Center’s “Microfinance Matters” series, joined other friends of Grameen Bank to set up Grameen Foundation in 1997. During his recent trips to Haiti, he has been meeting with microfinance industry leaders in general, and in particular with Fonkoze staff.
“Insights from ‘The Female Vision’ for Fonkoze and Microfinance,” his most recent post, begins:
Despite my busy fall schedule working as CEO for Grameen Foundation, the book on Fonkoze is advancing in exciting ways. I’ve written a draft of the first chapter and gotten helpful feedback from my writing guru Mark Levy. I’ve talked to Jessica Papin, the woman who is likely to be my agent, and she had some great feedback on the overall project.
One of Jessica’s recommendations is that for the book to have the best chance of success, Fonkoze needs to become better known prior to publication. So, she suggested that I first write a 10-15,000 word “long form article” for publication in something like Harpers or the New York Times magazine. (This could push back publication of the book by a year while giving me more time to do research next summer.) On first blush, I think this sequenced approach is a great idea and most of all, I like the energy and ideas she brings to the project. It’s exciting to see the team of people who believe in this book and are helping it succeed grow each and every month!
One of the most important and enjoyable parts of writing a book is reading other books whose content and/or approach is helpful. I recently finished The Female Vision by Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson after someone who read my earlier blog on Fonkoze as matriarchy. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
Haitian vendors at work in Port-au-Prince, Jan 20, 2010.
Besides containing a nice nod to the Smart Campaign‘s work on a process for certifying MFI client protection practices, Daniel Rozas’ post “Rethinking Multiple Borrowing” on MF Focus offers a fresh take on a much-mulled topic.
Rozas, who recently authored the report “Weathering the Storm” for the Center for Financial Inclusion, argues that despite press reports to the contrary, multiple borrowing is not the result of “heavy market penetration, or even saturation.”
Rozas looks at the phenomenon through the lens of Haiti, which he recently visited. (His post therefore brings to mind Alex Counts’ book project on Fonkoze, the Haitian MF pioneer.) Rozas begins his post:
Some time ago, I had a conversation with a microfinance investor. What is the greatest challenge facing the sector? – I asked. His answer: multiple borrowing – multiple borrowing getting people into too much debt; multiple borrowing transforming micro-enterprise lending into consumer finance; multiple borrowing rewriting the traditional relationship between MFIs and their clients.
Of course, multiple borrowing is present in all of these cases. But thinking about multiple borrowing along these lines misunderstands the basic situation. Multiple borrowing isn’t a reflection of some recent or extreme developments to be ascribed to runaway growth, greed, or willing ignorance. Nor is it some foreign element to be excised from microfinance. No, multiple borrowing is an intrinsic part of the practice, one that has been with us for years. Nor, despite press articles to the contrary, is it a result of heavy market penetration, or even saturation.
This is a realization I came upon during a recent trip to Haiti. Haiti, you see, is a relatively unpenetrated market, with peak numbers on MIX showing about 120,000 borrowers, or about 1.2% of the population. And yet the feedback from loan officers on the ground was that multiple borrowing is widespread, some suggesting that as many as 50% of their clients have loans with other MFIs. And this wasn’t a case of saturation in one place and nothing elsewhere – I heard similar stories both in the capital and in the regions. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
“Why write a book on Fonkoze when there are so many outstanding microfinance institutions in the world?”
Alex Counts poses that question to himself on the blog where he narrates his Fonkoze book project. It’s a query someone might naturally make, Counts says, upon learning that he is chronicling the work of the Haitian MFI.
Counts, the CEO of Grameen Foundation, sketches out a number of answers to the question based on his recent travels around Haiti. There, he’s been meeting with microfinance industry leaders, and in particular with Fonkoze’s stalwarts and trailblazers.
Counts, who was interviewed for the Center’s “Microfinance Matters” series, joined with other friends of Grameen Bank to set up Grameen Foundation in 1997.
His recent post “Microfinance, Short-Cuts, and Fonkoze” begins:
A natural question people in or close to the microfinance movement could ask me is, “Why write a book on Fonkoze when there are so many outstanding microfinance institutions in the world?” There are many plausible answers.
It is operating, with considerable success, in a so-called “failed state” and working with very poor people – at a time when many question whether microfinance can be effective in either context, let alone both. Furthermore, it is populated by some fascinating people and its history is punctuated by dramatic events. And as noted in an earlier post, it is a women-led organization in a sense that goes far beyond who the CEO is, and extends to who occupies the vast majority of leadership posts and, not unrelated, who defines the cultural norms. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Josh Goldstein, aka Mr. Provocative
The proliferation of smart and cell phones in Haiti is nothing short of remarkable. Even people who seem to be among the poorest of the poor have them. When people at the so-called bottom of the pyramid truly desire a new technology and the price is not outlandish, they find a way to purchase it. Marchands (market women) peddle their wares on Port-au-Prince’s teeming streets under ubiquitous sun umbrellas that Digicel, the largest cell phone provider, has handed out by the tens of thousands.
And Haitians, as I recently learned, often use these phones to text, email, or call relatives in the diaspora to ask them to remit money. Remittance transfers from relatives in the US, Canada, and elsewhere is the one source of reliable income for many of Haiti’s poor. When I visited Fonkoze’s bank in Port-au-Prince, every person in the waiting area was there to collect a remittance — not to save or borrow.
Visitors to the island with any kind of conscience struggle with the enormity of the suffering they encounter. Many provide cash gifts to Haitians they get to know, just to “do something,” hoping to make a small difference in a life or two. There is nothing new about this kind of direct philanthropy in the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere. But today, thanks to the communications revolution, that sense of responsibility for acquaintances (who are not relatives) can persist, and vividly so, after visitors leave the island.
Before departing from Boston for Haiti this spring, I hired a driver, based in Port-au-Prince, whom I will call Hector, to drive my daughter and me around the island. We had “met” through email, connected by a friend who had used his services in the past. Hector and I exchanged a few courteous emails and telephone calls to take care of logistics (I assumed he was a man of some means because the Haiti I knew in the 1990s was a place where only the wealthy had phones.) Hector wrote me exactly as follows:
my dear friend Johs, the pleasure is mine to get ur massage today, i think whenever you wanna come in haiti u will be welcome, and i will be glad to spend you my time.i will be happy to receive u may 18th,11 cause it’s haitian’s flag party,my phone number is:xxxxxxxxxxx available anytime
The Hector who met us at the airport was a very nice 28-year-old man, brimming with life and contagious bonhomie. He was available to chauffeur because he was unable to find any steady work — in spite of having some college education.
There are, of course, millions of poor Haitians like Hector, but they usually remain a bloodless, undifferentiated abstraction, and it is hard for most of us to stay emotionally connected to an abstraction for long. It was Hector I got to know as person, who took good care of me and my daughter. I learned about his evangelical minister father, his little brother (a part-time dispatcher for Handicap International), and his fiancée (a nursing student in New Orleans). I met a sister-in-law. Solidly lower-middle class, I suppose, but by Haitian standards. He did not shout his desperation — he had too much dignity for that. He had many dreams, but his frustrated ambition to do something with his life in Haiti was heartbreaking. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
Fonkoze clients dance between workshop sessions.
“What surprised me most?”
That’s the question Alex Counts asks himself about Fonkoze in his latest blog post on the Haitian MFI. The posts chronicle a larger project to complete a book about Fonkoze’s trailblazing, past and present.
Counts, the CEO of Grameen Foundation, has been traveling Haiti to talk with microfinance industry leaders in general and Fonkoze’s pioneers in particular.
Earlier this year, Counts was interviewed for the Center’s “Microfinance Matters” series. That interview looks at his roots in the industry, from the time he joined with other friends of Grameen Bank to set up Grameen Foundation in 1997.
His recent post “‘Our’ Earthquake & Eleven Surprises” touches on the recent earthquake that rattled nerves (but little more) on the United States’ East Coast. But the primary focus is on what has surprised him most about Fonkoze. Here are a few points he mentions in his post:
- Anne Hastings’ fearlessness.
- How happenings that would otherwise not be noteworthy can be catalysts in a crisis that jolt people to action.
- The very distinct karma in an organization where most of the senior staff are women.
- The new relevance of some so-called “old ideas” (about fighting global poverty) in the context of Fonkoze. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
Alex Counts meets two Haitian entrepreneurs.
Just what qualities make someone a “Madame Sara”?
The answer to that question lies in Grameen Foundation CEO Alex Counts’ ongoing blogging for his upcoming book about Fonkoze. As Counts travels Haiti, conversing with the country’s microfinance industry leaders in general and Fonkoze’s pioneers in particular, he often finds insights – and vocabulary – that might surprise outsiders.
Counts, who was interviewed for our “Microfinance Matters” series, joined with other friends of Grameen Bank to set up Grameen Foundation in 1997.
His recent post “Fonkoze and Madame Saras” analyzes how Fonkoze is attempting to turn post-earthquake conditions into opportunities for people determined to rebuild their lives:
Last fall I heard for the first time a term for a new type of Fonkoze client that almost made me giggle – “Madam Saras”. It turned out to be Fonkoze at its opportunistic best – responding in an entrepreneurial way to three developments:
- its excess liquidity (i.e., more savings deposits, on which it pays a nominal rate of interest, than it has in microloans outstanding),
- the problems its poor women vendor clients were having getting merchandise because the wholesalers they bought from were not able to import enough after the earthquake, and
- many of the wholesalers were savvy businesswomen (known in Haiti as “Madam Saras” which refers to birds that make a lot of noise and always move in flocks) who had lost inventory in the earthquake and had their credit lines reduced or cancelled by the mainstream banks. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
Iliamene Joseph Madam Jean Marc (left) and Linda Boucard.
Grameen Foundation CEO Alex Counts’ book on Fonkoze continues to take shape. He is blogging his journey through Haiti’s landscape, taking notes on the thoughts and memories of many leaders of the country’s microfinance industry.
Counts, whose work is outlined in an interview for our “Microfinance Matters” series, worked with other Grameen Bank allies to set up Grameen Foundation in 1997.
His most recent post, “An Avalanche of Material (Including Repressed Memories),” finds him talking to more leaders:
I have learned so much about Fonkoze‘s journey over the last three days that I hardly know where to start with this blog.
On Wednesday, I returned to Marigot and re-interviewed Iliamene with the assistance of Linda Boucard (who continued the interview while I had to take a call about my “day job” with Grameen Foundation that I formally remain on sabbatical from until August 1). I learned a lot more about her toughness, her humble origins, and shuffling between households in Marigot and Port-au-Prince before settling into a productive life as a wife, mother, community leader and entrepreneur. (She became even more productive after joining Fonkoze.) But due to a series of miscommunications, we had less time with her than we otherwise could have. Thankfully, Linda agreed to return in the weeks ahead to go deeper, since her story has real depth and complements Mariyn Bayonet’s tale well.
Read the rest of this entry »
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