FCA Chief Executive Officer/President, Mr. Armen Gabrielyan and FCA Deputy Chief Executive Officer/Chief Financial Officer Mrs. Ani Sargsyan, have participated in the 16th MFC conference in Budva, Montenegro during the period of 28 -30 May, 2013. The opening of a three day conference was launched by MFC Membership Meeting. Farm Credit Armenia UCO CC participated to the conference as a member of MFC.
Trainings for specially invited guests were organized before the opening of the conference. Mr. Gabrielyan was among them and participated in “SMART Campaign Assessor Training” conducted by Smart Campaign staff. The SMART Assessor Training was devoted to preparation of cadres of consultants, trainers and TA providers.
The conference was composed of different panels, each of which was devoted to the presentation and discussion of a specific topic. In one of the panels called “From Access to impact: Holistic Approach through ‘Microfinance Plus’” Ani Sargsyan was a panelist and made a presentation. The presentations was followed by a discussion. Mrs. Sargsyan’s full presentation is available here
The panel was intended to explore whether there are means, which will allow providing “Microfinance Plus” services in line with core financial offerings without hindering the effectiveness of their implementation. In particular the participants discussed whether “Microfinance Plus” services may be implied in sustainable way or the combination of models is needed. In this context, FCA, being a cooperative, initially has adopted principal of providing non-financial services to its members, such as various trainings, educational opportunities etc.
Active discussions and debates during the conference open up even more opportunities for cooperation with other companies, build a platform to discuss innovations in microfinance sector and others. Besides, this is a good opportunity to meet with potential investors/clients and discuss fundraising issues.
Microfinance Center (MFC) was founded in late 1997 with the aim of improving financial education, client protection, building effective microfinance, sharing “lessons Learnt” and others. MFC organizes conferences annually. Conference was attended by more than 450 microfinance practitioners, investors, private sector representatives and others. FCA is a member of MFC since 2012.