THE FOUNDATION: 15 YEARS OF ACTION FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

For 15 years, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation has contributed to the fight against poverty and inequality through financial inclusion, particularly for women and in rural areas of some of the most fragile countries. It provides long-term support to microfinance institutions and social impact businesses through a comprehensive relationship with each partner, with financing through loans or guarantees, technical assistance missions, equity investments, and as an investment fund advisor.

As of the end of September 2023, the Foundation was operating in 37 countries, 79 partners were supported including 69 microfinance institutions And 10 impact companies with an outstanding amount of 87.8 million Euros.

The Foundation was born from the meeting of two cultures

The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation emerged from the Crédit Agricole cooperative movement, which financed French farmers, to whom no one lent in the 19th century. The Foundation embodies Professor Yunus's vision that lending to the poor creates jobs and generates sustainable income for the benefit of all. This is microcredit, born in the late 1970s in Bangladesh. Professor Yunus's Grameen Trust and the Crédit Agricole Group are driven by a shared mission: to provide access to essential financial services to those excluded from the traditional financial system, particularly women, in rural areas so that they can develop their own businesses and in the most vulnerable countries.

The Foundation stands out by operating in difficult areas excluded from financial services, with unstable geopolitical and economic contexts (in the Sahel region, for example), and by supporting its partners over the long term. Over the past 15 years, the Foundation has established a socially responsible partnership.

The reality of borrowing customers

Microfinance positively impacts clients' decision-making power, empowers women entrepreneurs, and strengthens their overall socioeconomic status. All stakeholders are working to continuously support them, but they face current challenges: difficulties encountered due to rising risks for microfinance institutions and clients (over-indebtedness), the difficulty of measuring impact, limited job creation, and climate change.

Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation’s 2025 Ambitions.

• Supporting its partners' digital transformation and adaptation to climate change through comprehensive advice.
• Promote entrepreneurship, with priority given to women, and support small agricultural producers to address the challenges of digital transformations and adaptation to climate change.

 Five key dates

2009 : The Foundation grants a first loan from the Foundation in Kosovo to the microfinance institution KRK, in the amount of 2 million Euros

2010 : First stake in a social business company – La Laiterie du Berger in Senegal – for an amount of 200 million CFA francs (€305,000).

2012 India: 1st 1-week study tour on index microinsurance with 23 participants from 4 continents and 12 countries representing various professional backgrounds: regulators, insurers, managers of microfinance institutions, private foundations, donors.

2013 Establishment of a first technical assistance program, "the African Facility," intended to help small microfinance institutions in Africa, in collaboration with the French Development Agency

2018 Launch of the “Solidarity Banker” program with Crédit Agricole SA, which offers technical assistance missions to Crédit Agricole Group employees on behalf of the Foundation’s partners.

2020 : At the initiative of the Foundation, an international coalition of 30 organizations was created to support microfinance institutions and their clients in the face of the economic crisis caused by Covid-19.