The Foundation publishes Letter No. 36

The Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation publishes its Letter No. 36. This end of July marks the fifth month of the global health and economic crisis. All countries have been affected, but nonetheless, like the impact of extreme weather events, the health crisis is profoundly unequal in that it affects the most vulnerable populations the most.

Since the end of February, the Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation's teams have been mobilizing around several major initiatives. First and foremost, we established a rapid and ongoing dialogue with the organizations we support to understand the effects of the crisis, the measures taken, and their resulting needs. We then adapted our monitoring and analysis tools and our requests for information, particularly regarding business continuity plans and short-term cash flow plans. At the same time, we led an international coordination of lenders and inclusive finance stakeholders to act together, in consultation, to prevent any liquidity shock that would have destabilized the sector. Finally, we regularly published articles on the Covid-19 Observatory and on social media to share our analyses and inform stakeholders.

Five months into the crisis, we feel that this first wave has been well managed by microfinance institutions, all of which have demonstrated great professionalism. We would also like to highlight the remarkable support and attentiveness of our own financiers: the French Development Agency, Proparco, the European Investment Bank, Crédit Agricole and its entities Crédit Agricole CIB and Amundi. The sector's remarkable resilience has undoubtedly been strengthened thanks to these concerted and convergent actions between donors and microfinance institutions operating across the globe.

In this edition of the Letter, you will discover, among other things, the details of the International Coalition coordinated by the Foundation in response to the Covid-19 crisis and two projects that we launched during this complex period: the new website and the Foundation's first Impact Report.

We continue to monitor the effects of the health crisis with the greatest attention and our mobilization, on which you know you can count, is constant.

Download Letter No. 36 here.