Welcome to the blog of the Microcredit Summit Campaign’s Asia-Pacific Regional Microcredit Summit. The Summit begins in Bali, Indonesia, on July 28 and continues through the 31st. We invite your reactions, insight, and thoughts.

Who we are:
Since 1997, the Microcredit Summit Campaign, a project of Washington, DC-based RESULTS Educational Fund, has been the world’s largest global network of microcredit stakeholders, including 3,600 microfinance institutions in 134 countries. As of December 2006, our member organizations provided loans and other financial services to help more than 133 million of the world’s poor families lift themselves out of poverty through self-sufficiency. This includes 92 million families who were living on less than one U.S. dollar per day when they took out their first loan.

By 2015, the Microcredit Summit Campaign aims to provide leadership, guidance, and support to ensure that, in keeping with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals: (1) A total of 175 million of the world’s poorest families, especially women of those families, receive credit for self-employment and other financial and business services; and (2) 100 million families rise above the US$1 a day threshold, adjusted for purchasing power parity.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Microcredit Summit is being hosted by the Microcredit Summit Campaign and our Indonesian partner organization, Gema PKM. This Summit has received tremendous support from the Government of Indonesia and Bank Indonesia. The President of Indonesia, The Honorable Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will inaugurate the Summit on Monday, July 28 at 10 am in Bali, Indonesia.

Among the dignitaries participating in the opening day of the Asia-Pacific Summit are, along with President Bambang Yudhoyono, The Honorable Manuel Zalaya Rosales, President of Honduras, The Honorable Alejandro Toledo, Former President of Peru, and Mrs. Zanele Mbeki, First Lady of South Africa. They are being welcomed by Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate and Founder of the Grameen Bank, and MCS Director and Founder Sam Daley-Harris.

Hot topics like the commercialization of microcredit are on the agenda at this convergence of social entrepreneurs, donors, researchers, investors, and practitioners from 50 countries. Speakers at the conference include Asia’s most prominent microcredit leaders: Prakash Bakshi, Executive Director of NABARD (India), Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder of BRAC (Bangladesh), Shafiqual Haque Choudhury, Founder of ASA (Bangladesh), and RM Malla, Chair of SIDBI (India).

The Microcredit Summit Campaign would like to thank our sponsors and donors, especially our Platinum Donor, Bank Indonesia, our Silver Donor, Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach Initiative, and Supporter, J.P. Morgan. We’d also like to thank the Australian Agency for International Development, Cranes Software International Limited, FINCA International, Grameen Foundation, LDS Employment Resource Services, MicroCredit Enterprises, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), Temenos, Unitus, and the World Savings Banks Institute.