A total of 15 participants coming from several microfinance institutions in Northern Luzon attended the “Fundamentals and Methodologies of Microfinance” training held at the Nueva Segovia Cosortium of Cooperatives in Vigan, Ilocos Sur on January 28-30. The training is the first offering for 2008 of the Ateneo-BPI Partnership to provide capacity building services to microfinance stakeholders.
The participants gave the training resource persons a rating of 4.75 out of a highest possible score of 5.00. A participant from the Santo Domingo Development Cooperative said that “the topics were all delivered very well and the training is really of great help to our organization.”
In 2006, the Bank of the Philippine Islands and the Ateneo de Manila University started a pioneering partnership to build the capacity of microfinance institutions. The partnership aims to upgrade the technical capacity of microfinance institutions to enable them to absorb greater amount of funds used to reach out to a greater number of poor people; and provide immediately applicable tools to microfinance institutions for better implementation and operational policies. The partnership has two components. These are the conduct of regional trainings in pre-selected key cities within the Philippines; and facilitate the access of microfinance institutions to BPI’s capacity building loan.
Since the inception of the partnership, the trainings held in key cities of the Philippines were able to reach out to 88 microfinance institutions attended by 217 participants. An average of 20 participants attended the trainings.