Social economy is a part of the economy driven primarily by collective interests as well as social and environmental objectives. This initiative seeks to boost the contribution of social economy organisations to a fair and sustainable growth. It will enhance social investment, support social economy actors to start up, scale up, innovate and create jobs. Therefore, EU is developing action ...

One of the key objectives of the EaSI programme is to stimulate the financial and social inclusion of borrowers wishing to set-up or develop their micro-enterprises and who may have limited or no access to the conventional credit market. To this end, under the EaSI Microfinance Guarantee, the offering of non-financial support in the form of business development services (“BDS”) as ...

The European Union is offering this webinar to representatives from microfinance institutions (MFI) about the demand for finance from the agriculture sector and how financial institutions can increase lending to agri-businesses. This session is first of a webinar series aiming to help microfinance institutions interested in exploring the investment needs in the agri-finance sector. The first webinar will explore the ...

[article regularly updated]   Last year’s BWC results are here for you to consult. The participants, assisted by MFC team, have done a tremendous job to adapt the Campaign to the pandemic reality. General outreach of the Campaign in 2020 You surely are curious of the overall outreach of #Borrow Wisely last year. The figures are terrific: overall BWC partners ...

  In 2011, the European Commission presented the Social Business Initiative (SBI) which established an EU level action plan with concrete measures to establish a favourable environment for social enterprises (SE). This study analyses the impact of the SBI on the development of social enterprises/social economy and their operating environments at national and EU levels. The study also includes an ...

The transition period of the updated Code, published on 30 June 2020, will end on 31 December 2020. As of 1 January 2021, all new Code evaluations of microfinance institutions will be made based on the updated Code. In addition, the Code Steering Group, chaired by the European Commission, has adopted on 27 November 2020 the following changes regarding the ...

Deadline to take part in the survey extended until 11 December 2020   MFC would like to share with you a survey on the European Code of Good Conduct for Microcredit Provision (the Code). This survey will be feeding into a study, conducted by the University of Salford on behalf of the European Commission, focusing on the impact of the ...

News: 2020 edition’s results | 2021BWC invitation Big THANK YOU and first impressions 7th Edition of the Borrow Wisely Campaign Has Started Right Now! #BorrowWisely is kicking off in TWO WEEKS!   Check out: BWC in pandemic – Participating Institutions – BWC basics – BWC last year   October will be a month of wise borrowing for the seventh time already! ...

The European Union is offering this webinar to microfinance institutions (MFI) interested to understand what is the role of the finance sector and in particular microfinance in the pursuit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The webinar will take place on the 5 November 2020. The session will touch the connection between the SDGs and microfinance’s mission to support ...

This paper summarizes the data collected by the Microfinance Centre (MFC) through a survey of microfinance institutions in Europe to assess the impact of COVID-19 crisis on the situation of microfinance institutions and their clients. The results show that while the pandemic touched all countries in the EU, the severity of its impact was markedly different, from very strong in ...