Citigroup Foundation and the UN Development Program (UNDP)
announced the Chinese winners of their Global Microentrepreneurship
Awards in Beijing yesterday, which aim to promote microcredit as a
tool for poverty alleviation and social inclusion.
Renaud Meyer, UNDP's deputy representative in China, said poorer
people have little financial capital, but there is no limit to
their creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial drive.
"They require not charity but the same opportunities as everyone
else," he said. "Microfinance is such a powerful mechanism for
empowerment and poverty reduction because it unleashes the drive of
the poor to improve their lives themselves."
The awards, the first of which were given last year but which
included China for the first time among 34 participating countries
this year, are a key element of the UN's International Year of
Microcredit. A global awards ceremony, to which winners from nine
countries including China were invited, was held in New York on the
same day.
Richard Stanley, CEO of Citigroup China, said his company wished
such a program could serve to promote the recognition and role of
microfinance in China's ongoing social and economic
development.
A total of 292 applicants participated in the awards in China,
and 25 were selected as winners of nine categories: rural
agriculture, rural animal husbandry, rural non-agriculture, urban
trade, urban processing, urban services, best urban loan officer,
best rural loan officer and an overall special prize.
Citigroup Foundation and UNDP launched the awards' selection
process to the press on August 3, seeking to highlight the
importance of building inclusive financial sectors. In China, the
awards process was facilitated by a team including UNICEF, the
Global Microentrepreneurship Awards Student Alliance and
Microfinance Promotion Network.
The UNDP's work on the development of microcredit in China began
in 1994, and its program has so far disbursed microcredit to more
than 300,000 clients throughout the country.
It is now focusing on the role of policy, and has found that
legal and regulatory arrangements are one of the major factors
hindering Chinese microcredit development.
The UNDP has collaborated with the ,
and earlier this year published a comprehensive policy study
surveying the state of Chinese microcredit.
(China Daily November 9, 2005)