The Association of Microfinance Institutions of Rwanda (AMIR) in collaboration with SEEP Network and the MasterCard Foundation is implementing Responsible Finance through Local Leadership and Learning Program (RFL3). The program’s goal is to scale the application of consumer protection principles for low income financial service customers. Consumer protection principles are designed to allow customers to derive greater economic benefits from financial services while promoting trust and transparency in the sector.
All along the implementation of the RFL3 program, AMIR intends to engage key stakeholders and partners in the implementation and scale up of client protection principles in the microfinance sector. To insure the efficiency of the RFL3 project, AMIR organized stakeholders meeting to identify the key stakeholders and define their respective roles. the meeting was attended in general by 23 institutions including some AMIR members: big MFIs and five representative of MFIs at provincial level. The specific objectives for this meeting were about (1)Active engagement of relevant stakeholders by forming a national platform comprising public and private sector stakeholders to share models of good practice; (2)Identifying the role of each stakeholder in the promotion of client protection, relevant research, awareness raising on evolving global standards, and to discuss and assess industry wide progress; (3)Discussion on the functionality and current status of districts access to finance forums and their potential to foster effective client protection in the financial sector ; and advocating for the law governing these forums
Due to open discussions of the topics discussed about and presentations that were presented, the stakeholders meeting participants recommended the following:
(1)The participants requested to form a platform specifically for the implementation of RFL3 program, this platform will be meeting every quarter, to discuss the progress of the program and the way forward plus other related issues. The meeting participants decided to set up committee responsible for this forum: Chairperson; Mr. NDIZEYE Damie from ADECOR; Vice-Chairperson:Mr TURATSINZE Frank from AFR; Secretary; LAMBASHA Mary from Development SACCO KIMISAGARA; (2) Organize training course on client protection for the identified key stakeholders; (3) The IEC materials must be disseminated to the stakeholders for them to have much information about RFL3: preferably the materials must be in Kinyarwanda; (4) More stakeholders should be involved.
