Innovative Financing to Help More than 175,000 of Philippines Poorest Women

Grameen Foundation USA and NWTF Partnership Produces Micro-loans and Other Financial Services

(PRWEB) July 21, 2005 -- Efforts by Grameen Foundation USA (GFUSA) to expand the microfinance industry in the Philippines are paying off. Today, it announced the largest financing leverage in the history of microfinance in the Philippines, the launch of a new microfinance bank, and the testing of a newly developed poverty scorecard" to measure the movement of microfinance clients from poverty to self-reliance.

A $250,000 standby letter of credit from GFUSA enabled Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation (NWTF), a GFUSA microfinance partner, to leverage a record 60 million pesos ($1.1 mil.) loan from Oikocredit Foundation Philippines at 4.4:1, an unprecedented leverage ratio for that country. These resources will help NWTF to reach its 2008 goal of funding a total of 250,000 microfinance clients; it currently serves 73,000 and plans to reach an additional 26,000 by years end.

This coincides with a second historic accomplishment. On July 18th, NWTF opened the Dungganon Bank, Inc.---- the first woman-run microfinance thrift bank in the country in the Philippines. Dungganon Bank, Inc. is expected to fill the gap in financial services for the poor in the central Philippine province of Negros Occidental by providing deposit accounts, small loans, payment services, money transfers and other financial and microfinance services.

The bank evolved from NWTF's Project Dungganon" (Dungganon means honorable in the Ilonggo language), a women-based microfinance program started in 1988. GFUSA provided financial and technical assistance to significantly upgrade the banks automated management information system, a key to its ability to offer a wide range of quality services.

This is the second guarantee deal in the Philippines brokered by GFUSA. In 2004, it guaranteed a $410,000 credit line for the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD), another microfinance institution partner, enabling it to open 15 new branches and putting it on track to meet to its larger outreach goal of 600,000 borrowers by 2008.

We are very excited about being a catalyst for this tremendous growth in the Philippine microfinance industry," said Alex Counts, GFUSA President. "Microfinance currently reaches about 30 percent of poor Filipinos and the leverage generated by this standby letters of credit means thousands more can open or expand micro- businesses and move their families out of poverty. It also initiates and supports a significant relationship between our microfinance partners and the Philippine banking sector that can expand to impact even more poor families."

Alongside the new bank and microfinance deals, GFUSA is piloting its new approach to measuring impact based on a poverty scorecard." The scorecard, which will provide a low-cost, practitioner-friendly tool to measure the number of microfinance clients moving out of poverty, will be presented at its inaugural training workshop being held in the Philippines, July 19 to 26. Once implemented, it will provide more reliable data that will help measure the effectiveness of microfinance projects in reducing poverty, and standardize the measurement of social impact across the industry.

It is estimated that the Philippines is home to the largest number of Grameen-style programs, many of which have become some of the largest poverty-focused microfinance institutions in the world. Four of these [(NWTF, CARD, Ahon sa Hirap, Inc. (AHSI), and Tulay Sa Pag-unlad Inc. (TSPI) are GFUSA partners and receive financial support, technical assistance, MIS automation, and human resource development support.

A fifth, the Center for Community Transformation (CCT), is now in the process of forming a partnership with GFUSA. Altogether, these four partners are projected to add 1.2 million poor people to the ranks of microfinance borrowers in the next four years. For more information about GFUSA's work in the Philippines, visit www.gfusa.org.

About Grameen Foundation USA
Grameen Foundation USA (GFUSA) is a global non-profit organization that combines microfinance, new technologies, and innovative thinking to empower the world's poorest people to escape poverty. Founded in 1997, GFUSAs global network includes 50 partners in 20 countries. The network has impacted an estimated 5.5 million lives in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.gfusa.org.

About Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation, Inc.
Founded in Bacolod City, Philippines, in 1984 by Dr. Cecelia del Castillo, Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation, Inc. (NWTF) uses microfinance and entrepreneurial support programs to help women achieve self-sufficiency and self-reliance, particularly in Negros Occidental's low-income and depressed urban and rural communities. For more information, visit www.nwtf.ph/index.htm.

###