Events

September 18 - 20 , 2008

Location:University of Bergamo - Italy
Program: Boulder-Bergamo Forun on Access to Financial Services: Expanding the Rural Frontier

The Boulder Institute of Microfinance in partnership with the University of Bergamo has designed a forum to bring together leading academic researchers with a group of key policy makers who guide government programs. The primary purpose of this inaugural conference is to shorten the cycle between ideas, innovations, rigorous research , and its practical applications on policies with the final goal of expanding the delivery and access of financial services to poor people. 

This year’s conference focuses on the special challenges of delivering and expanding the frontier for rural finance and is supported by the Rural Finance Program at The Ohio State University.

Plenary presentations will be delivered by Gershon Feder (World Bank), Dean Karlan (Yale), Jonathon Morduch (NYU), Jerry Skees (U. of Kentucky), and Robert Townsend (U. of Chicago). There will be additional presentations and dialogues by policymakers, academics, practitioners, and funders from around the world whose voices will represent different academic and applied viewpoints. Included among these are Juan Antonio Morales (former Finance Minister of Bolivia), Crispin Bokea (Central Bank of Kenya), Peer Stein (IFC), Thorsten Beck (World Bank), and Alexander Sarris (FAO).

June 10 , 2008

Location: New York, NY
Program: Book signing with Alex Counts, President of Grameen Foundation

FAI Managing Director Jonathan Morduch calls Counts' new book, Small Loans Big Dreams "an improbable story of global proportions, told by a gifted story-teller with inside access". The event includes a book signing, hors d'oeuvres and networking with other microfinance professionals.

$50.00 admission includes book and RSVP is requested by emailing bethd@projectenterprise.org. 

The event will take place on Tuesday June 10th from 6:30-8:30 pm at:

The Core Club

66 East 55th Street

(Between Madison and Park)

New York, NY 10022

May & July, 2008

Location: Cambridge-US (May 27-31), Chennai-India (Jul 28 - Aug 1) and Paris-France (May 26-30)
Program: Evaluation of Social Programs by J-PAL

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) hold week-long courses on “Evaluation of Social Programs”. The courses focus on how to measure scientifically the effectiveness of development programs.

J-PAL is a research institute based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, committed to fighting poverty by ensuring that policy decisions are based on scientific evidence.  J-PAL works with NGOs, international organizations, government institutions, and others to evaluate programs and disseminate the results of this high quality research.

The executive education program is targeted at development practitioners, government officials, researchers and academics who want to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to scientifically test the impact of poverty programs, in developing and advanced countries.  The curriculum provides a thorough understanding of randomized evaluations.  The courses will be led by renowned faculty affiliated with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab – including MIT, Harvard and Yale – with extensive experience evaluating programs in the field.  The training program includes lectures, hands-on exercises, and group work, and is highly interactive.

The application deadline for the Cambridge and the Paris courses is March 15, 2008.  Additional information regarding the courses and application procedure is available online at: http://www.povertyactionlab.org/course/2008/

April 25 , 2008

Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Program: Bank of Mexico Conference of Evaluation Methods

The Bank of Mexico will hold a conference on Evaluation Methods, where Anna York from FAI and Tania Alfonso from Innovations for Poverty Action, Peru will present on randomized control trial evaluation methodology and types and examples of impact studies. They will specifically discuss FAI/IPA’s Business Education study from Peru.

February 21-22, 2008

Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Program: Frankfurt Forum on Development Finance

Christina Barrineau is a speaker on the panel "Responsible Policy-Makers: Ensuring Financial Sector Stability and Building Inclusive Financial Systems".

The 2008 Frankfurt Forum on Development Finance is organized this year around the topic of Responsible Finance. The conference explores to what extent there is a confluence between the two currents of responsible finance: the microfinance sector, on one side, and the commercial banks on the other.

 

December 10, 2007

Location: Tokyo, Japan
Program: A Microfinance Symposium: What We Know and Don't Know about Microfinance

Jonathan Morduch is the keynote speaker at A Microfinance Symposium: What We Know and Don't Know about Microfinance.

Organized by the Japanese translation team for his book "The Economics of Microfinance" and co-organized by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the symposium designed to enhance understanding about microfinance in Japan. The symposium brings a broad range of academics, researchers, students, practioners, and business leaders in the finance industry.

COE Conference - Wealth & Poverty in Economic Development

November 15, 2007

Location: New York, USA
Program: Innovations for Poverty: Scaling up MicroEnterprises and Measuring the development impact

Dean Karlan speaks at a McKinsey Alumni Development event.

October 7, 2007

Location: Chicago, USA
Program: Opportunity International Annual Board of Governors

Dean Karlan will be the Featured Speaker at the Opportunity International Annual Board of Governors. Opportunity International governors from around the country meet annually learn more about Opportunity International's work, meet with staff leadership and directors, share ideas and meet other governors who are passionate about helping to lift poor entrepreneurs out of poverty through microfinance.

October 5, 2007

Location: London, United Kingdom
Program: Workshop on Development Field Experiments

The workshop is to promote interchange between outside academics and EBRD staff involved in using field experiments to evaluate EBRD projects and programs. The workshop will begin with presentations by Antionette Schoar, Dean Karlan and Esther Duflo to be followed by presentations of results from recent EBRD field experiments. There will be plenty of scope for discussion of how experimental techniques can be applied to evaluate a range of projects and programs. The organizers also hope that this workshop will serve as vehicle for promoting collaboration between outside academics and EBRD researchers. ( details...)

October 3, 2007

Location: Bogota, Colombia
Program: Impact Evaluation Network at LACEA

Dean Karlan will serve as the keynote speaker at the first meeting of the Impact Evaluation Network (IEN). IEN is an initiative that aims to advance the state of knowledge and expertise regarding impact evaluation of different policies in the Latin American and Caribbean region.

September 30, 2007

The paperback version of Economics of Microfinance co-authored by FAI Director Jonathan Morduch will be available on September 30, 2007

September 26-28, 2007

Location: New York City, New York

Christina Barrineau attends the Clinton Global Initative 2007 Annual Meeting on behalf of the Financial Access Initiative with sponsorship from the Eranda Foundation.

August 24, 2007

Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Program: Financial Institutions for Private Enterprise Development (FIPED) at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Jonathan Morduch will participate as a faculty member in a two-week intensive program on frontier issues in microfinance and SME finance, held at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The 2007 program brings together executives and policymakers from the US, Canada, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Barbados, Bermuda, the Philippines, Bolivia, Mexico, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, and Tunisia.

http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/program/fiped/overview.aspx