|
|
2002
ECLOF International board meeting
Board affirms
1/3 policy
The
main item both on and off the official agenda was ECLOF’s
fundraising efforts in the USA. Besides the time allocated
for this topic in the regular meeting, a seminar originally
scheduled for two hours but which lasted for an extra
half hour, also helped develop the subject.
|
|
|
Serve
effectively and live within your means
ECLOF
International board Chair challenges national managers
Rev. Prof. Christoph Stückelberger
has told an ECLOF gathering that efficiency and cost
effective practices are the only way to deal with
current problems facing a number of National ECLOF
Committees (NECs).
|
|
|
Books
and publications
Ecumenical Advocacy
Alliance
Two new resources are available from the Ecumenical
Advocacy Alliance (EAA), which is a broad ecumenical
network for coordinated international advocacy on HIV/AIDS
and global trade.
|
|
|
Meet
ECLOF clients
Dominican Republic field visits
These
loans are an important part of ECLOF’s work because they reaffirm
the original mandate of the ECLOF family to help people and groups who
want to worship and come together in community, but who do not have a
church or any other adequate place in which to assemble.
|
|
|
New
ECLOF Directors
At the beginning of the
year, Magnus Amoa-Bosompem was promoted from
Account Officer to Programme Manager at ECLOF Ghana.
Magnus’ professional career began with a local
housing and construction bank back in1979. During his
banking career Magnus completed a university course
and took a number of specialised courses in bank management,
foreign exchange and data management programmes.
|
|
|
Problem
solving in southern Africa
During
two weeks in September, the Lutheran World Federation
(LWF) held a microfinance workshop in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
LWF staff from Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland,
Zambia and Zimbabwe attended as Nils Gunnar-Smith reports.
|
|
|
Role
of research
At
the recent meeting of ECLOF international managers
in the Dominican Republic, one of the country’s
leading microfinance practitioners explained how market
research could support a NEC’s strategy for growth
and sustainability.
|
|
|
Daily
Bread
From
micro to small enterprise: the story of perseverance
and success by a small solidarity group in Malawi.
Three women and two men own the T.T.V. Bakery and
Butchery Company in Manase, a heavily populated poor
area seven kilometres from Blantyre, the capital of
Malawi.
|
Being
in the market-place
A
strategy towards self-sustainability
At the end of June 2001, just before the opening
of our first branch office, we had disbursed from
our head office new loans totalling only P2,250,000
(US$43,706).
|
Capacity
building
Bold
in Boulder
When Dr Priscilla Daniel from ECLOF International
attended the eighth annual Microfinance Training Programme
in Boulder, Colorado, USA, she did some effective straight
talking to specialists and the general public. New Horizons
asked Dr Daniel for more details.
|
Director’s
message
“Even
in a crisis there can be opportunities.”
This was the response by John Banda, Executive
Director, ECLOF Zimbabwe, at the recent International
Managers Workshop when he was asked how ECLOF Zimbabwe
had managed to achieve such remarkable results despite
the many challenges his country faced, not least an
inflation rate in excess of 100%.
|
E-mail
Q & A
Extracts
from an MFI Audit Information Centre discussion group
I am struggling with a problem, which is not entirely
clear to me. The use of compulsory savings as cash
security for loans is well known in microfinance.
To stress the character as security (as opposed to
savings) the mobilised resources are sometimes referred
to as Loan Insurance Fund (LIF). In my view, there
are two possible ways to treat this money.
|
Inhabiting
God’s Garden
A
Bible study by Dr Musa Dube, formerly of the University
of Botswana, is always an energetic and memorable
occasion, as she demonstrated once again at the ECLOF
Africa Regional Workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe last
year. In this edited version of her presentation,
Dr Dube considers the story of Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden.
|
News
from NECs
Transport
trouble
It gleamed, it sparkled…and it cost a fortune.
With an expensive vehicle on its hands, ECLOF Sri
Lanka had to stop the drain on its budget.
|
Readers’
letters
Dear
New Horizons
May I express our appreciation of and God’s
blessing for the forefathers of the Ecumenical Church
Loan Fund? Their foresight in founding ECLOF to lend
funds to churches, and to poor and small entrepreneurs
to begin or boost their businesses has brought great
relief to humankind wherever ECLOF has been established.
Long live the Ecumenical Church Loan Fund and may it
grow in strength!
|
Why
save?
Limits
to savings mobilisation
Savings are important to all of us, in fact more
important than loans.
|
