Capacity building needs and solutions for social finance providers in EU 27

This paper presents the work in progress of MFC and its partners in identifying capacity building needs of social finance providers and addressing them.

MFC aims at building capacity of members and partners for mission driven, sustainable microfinance, concerned with climate protection issues, fostering social and digital inclusion. Over the year 2024, MFC used its interactions with members and partners to map the needs of social finance providers and to identify viable solutions. It has been achieved through the following activities:

• Meetings, interviews, and emails exchange within the MFC Capacity Building Action Group, which gathered microfinance providers (MFPs), Social Enterprise Finance Providers (SEFPs), support organizations, associations and consultants providing services to MFPs and SEFPs.
• Technology Action Group, which discussed specifically the capacity building needs in digitalization
• Trends, Good Practice and Clients Needs Action Group provided inputs for the financial providers gaps related to providing training and advice to microentrepreneurs.
• Partnership Action Group, which provided inputs focused on understanding of the major trends and best practices influencing the work of MFC
• SIFTA Programme capacity building users, that provided their feedback during evaluation of the events they participated in.

Based on the above, MFC identified a wide range of capacity building services to be delivered to the sector within the next year. This is work in progress and it will be continued during 2025.

We group the needs into the following categories.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.