The European Microfinance Week (EMW) 2023, which will take place in Luxembourg from November 15 to 17, is fast approaching! One of the industry’s leading knowledge sharing and networking events, EMW welcomes more than 500 professionals, in person and online, and this year will include more than 40 sessions – plenaries, small groups, closed-door roundtables closed sessions and action group meetings – organized in several thematic streams. These include: “inclusive finance for food security and nutrition”, green and climate-smart finance, refugees and forcibly displaced people, digitalization, investment, financial health, protection of clients, as well as results and impact, among others. Here is a selection of what attendees can expect:
“Inclusive finance for food security and nutrition” This is the theme of the European Microfinance Award 2023, the €100,000 prize awarded each year by the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, which this year aims to highlight the innovations of financial service providers (PSF) to guarantee access to quality and affordable food for vulnerable people. populations and increase the resilience of food systems. EMW2023 attendees will be able to choose from a range of sessions addressing the different dimensions of food security, including:
- A opening plenary session to kick off this session, which will bring together different perspectives from key stakeholders to comprehensively address current challenges in the field and discuss the role of FSPs in food security and building sustainable food systems;
- Create favorable ecosystems to maximize the supply of agricultural products through investments and technical assistance will focus on how investments associated with technical assistance can be a real driver of impact;
- East Africa – The role of microfinance in food security discuss the role of financial inclusion in supporting food security and the challenges FSPs face when supporting smallholder farmers and agribusinesses in the region;
- Food security and nutrition: the FSP customer’s point of view: an exploration of the different food security and nutrition challenges of rural and urban clients – and how FSPs can better address them; And
- Increasing food security through women-focused financing: a panel to present lessons learned from finance and food security projects focused on women.
As always, Thursday evening will see the Awardsorganized at the European Investment Bank, to announce the winner of the 2023 prize, and to which all EMW2023 participants are invited.
Green and climate-smart finance increasingly appears as the most important topic for EMW participants and e-MFP members (as the next Financial inclusion compass 2023, which will be launched at EMW2023, will show this). EMW2023 will begin with an opening plenary session to recognize (and celebrate) 10 years of the e-MFP Green and Inclusive Climate Intelligence Action Group – and to showcase key milestones achieved so far and the changing challenges in the field. This will be followed by small group sessions on:
- Inclusive green finance – a regulatory agenda: an orientation session on the role of central banks and financial regulators in promoting financial inclusion and building resilience to climate change;
- From product to impact: data management in inclusive green finance: this session will bring together MFIs, investors and policy makers to discuss climate risk products, impact data management tools and the latest taxonomies;
- Financial services for the development of the forest value chain and the financing of the just transition: the key role of inclusive financing, for biodiversity and the climate will address the issues of climate change and the erosion of biodiversity, which require a profound and rapid transition of our economies; And
- Other signs, such as Investing in climate resilience: strategies and opportunitieswill cover the path from climate change risk assessment and mitigation to climate resilience, as well as business opportunities and chances of success of PSFs.
As of June 2023, there were more than 102 million forcibly displaced people (FDP) around the world. On Friday morning, there will be a plenary session to gather views from various stakeholders working towards the financial inclusion of the FDP. This plenary, entitled Financial inclusion of forcibly displaced people (PDF) – Field experiences will explore the experiences of implementing financial inclusion projects in several countries in the South and Europe.
Results and impact continues to be one of the most important – and growing – topics for e-MFP members and EMW participants, particularly the challenge for PSFs to collect reliable data in a sustainable and ethics to measure the effects of their activities. Sessions on this topic during EMW2023 include:
- Social performance and results: where are we?: this session will present some lessons learned from the main stakeholders and their projects carried out in partnership with investors;
- Building a shared vision for the impact of financial inclusion 2.0: a session to discuss why the impact of financial services continues to be a top priority for various FSPs, policymakers and funders, despite several decades of effort; And
- The Power of the Customer Voice: Using Survey Data to Understand and Improve Customer Lives: This panel will focus on the work investors do in partnership with FSPs to effectively collect customer data and the importance of internalizing and acting on that information.
Finally, there will be a closing plenary entitled From Brussels to the world: the downstream impact of the regulation of European fundswhich will discuss the likely impacts of recent European fund regulations governing social and environmental investments.
Other topics covered in the many EMW2023 sessions include customer protection, women’s leadership and gender mainstreaming, regulation, insurance, fintech, WASH, data and much more. As always, we have brought together the best experts – practitioners, academics, investors, technologists, analysts and others – to lead these sessions as well as the many Q&As and other public engagement activities. And there will be plenty of networking slots for attendees to mingle over food and drinks, or meet in small groups in a more private setting.
For more information on all themes and sessions, networking opportunities and side events – or to register – please visit conference website. We hope to see you at Neumünster Abbey in Luxembourg (or failing that, online) next month!
e-MFP, with over 130 members from across geographies and specializations, is the leading network of organizations and individuals active in the financial inclusion sector in developing countries. The e-MFP promotes activities that increase global access to affordable, quality, sustainable and inclusive financial services for the un(under)banked by fostering knowledge sharing, partnership development and innovation. Learn more about www.e-mfp.eu.
Fernando Naranjo is the Program Coordinator at e-MFP, overseeing the organization of EMW.
This report is part of a sponsored series on European Microfinance Week 2023, which will take place from 15 to 17 November in Luxembourg and online. MicroCapital has been committed to promoting and reporting on the event every year since 2012. You can register for European Microfinance Week at: https://www.emw2023.eu/.
Additional Resources
European Microfinance Week 2023 Homepage
https://www.emw2023.eu/
Homepage of the European Microfinance Prize
https://www.european-microfinance-award.com/
MicroCapital’s coverage of European Microfinance Week since 2012, including the European Microfinance Prize
https://www.microcapital.org/category/european-microfinance-week/
