ICRIF to open with 300+ participants representing 223 organizations from 37 countries
Rwanda is hosting the International Conference on Responsible and Inclusive Finance (ICRIF2018) for the first time. This Conference is convened by the Association of Microfinance Institutions in Rwanda (AMIR) and its development partners, namely: the National Bank of Rwanda, Access to Finance Rwanda, The SEEP Network, SBFIC, The Smart Campaign, ICCO Terrafina, Care International, OikoCredit and SMART Campaign.
The event will bring together leading stakeholders in the field of financial inclusion to facilitate dialogue, share promising approaches, and promote effective policy and practice to address the needs of low income financial services customers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through a menu of sessions with innovative learning formats – four plenaries, six peer learning sessions, and two trainings – ICRIF2018 will provide learning opportunities for a range of actors about strategies, successes and challenges of the Responsible Finance Agenda within and outside of Rwanda.
“Responsible Finance is A Coordinated Effort! It must be propagated by a wide range of bodies including investors, lenders, financial institutions (individually or in partnerships with others), commercial banks, microfinance institutions, support organizations, industry associations, advocacy organizations and in some countries governments / regulators (…) Doing all this requires a concerted effort from service providers, regulators, industry associations / self-regulatory organizations, lenders, funding agencies, investors, support organizations, advocacy organizations and last but not least, clients.”
–Veena Yamini Annadanam, Senior Analyst, MicroSave and Founder, Ankuram Social Ventures
This international conference targets stakeholders and market actors in the responsible inclusive finance sphere, namely: practitioners /microfinance institutions, financial inclusion experts, microfinance associations, Government representatives, researchers, international and local NGOs, Fintechs, technical and financial development partners and responsible finance standards setting bodies.
According to Aimable NKURANGA, Executive Director of AMIR, ICRIF2018 will be an opportunity to showcase how far the country has come and give the sector a platform to interact with some of the best performing networks and financial service providers from the region. It is also an avenue to strengthen capacity and structures to ensure growth and promote responsible inclusive finance.
The Conference topics will be organized around three key dimensions of the financial inclusion space: the enabling environment, financial services providers and clients.
ICRIF2018 will take place at Kigali Marriot hotel from 21st to 22nd March 2018.
