Zusammenfassung:
This Conference brings together the financial experience of rural and agricultural microfinance institutions and the experience of the Common Fund and other agencies with promoting commodities and small and micro-entrepreneurs producing, processing and marketing commodities. We expect that this will result in: – the further growth and development of sustainable financial services; and – the further growth and development of sustainable commodity-related enterprises. These two objectives – the growth of profitable local financial institutions and of profitable local enterprises – are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. There is one lesson to be learned from the now developed industrial countries: Focusing in an early stage of development on the poor, who largely depend on commodities, means focusing on a huge future market. We hope to get this message across to large numbers of financial institutions.