Our Partners
MOROCCO
Morocco boasts the largest, most mature, and fastest growing microfinance industry in the Middle East and North Africa, with the highest regional penetration at approximately 50%. With a population of 34.3 million people, Morocco is the second largest country in the region. 19.3% of the population lives below the national poverty line, and estimated market potential is just over 2 million.
Moroccan microfinance institutions have benefited from a historically strong regulatory framework that has propelled healthy growth, promoted transparency and best practices, and earned the industry international respect. The Moroccan government provided a key influx of capital at a critical point in the industry’s evolution when it created the US $10 million Hassan II Fund for Economic & Social Development in 2000. It has continued its progressive orientation by legalizing the provision of an increasingly diverse range of products, including housing loans and, more recently, micro insurance. As a result, Morocco is responsible for nearly half of the industry’s client outreach throughout the entire Middle East and North Africa region.
Grameen Foundation took note of this strong enabling environment to support rapid industry growth, saw the positive results that were beginning to emerge, and became involved in the industry in 2003 to further propel it forward. Key among its accomplishments has been providing more than US $8.9 million to facilitate US $25.6 million in financing to its partners, assisting partners with the development of business plans that are geared toward rapid growth, and providing partners with access to industry-standard tools and training to improve their systems and human resource management.
Association Al Karama de Micro Credit (Al Karama)
Fondation pour le Développement Local et le Partenariat – Micro-crédit (FONDEP)
Association Al Karama de Micro Credit (Al Karama): Al Karama is a non-profit organization established in 1999 that specializes in microcredit. Created under Morocco’s national microcredit law (18/97), it is committed to supporting the progressive growth of microenterprise by supplying financial and technical support to its clients.
Al Karama’s target group includes owners of microbusinesses (or ideas for microbusinesses) that do not have access to formal financial services and do not have collateral. Women are the primary target, and currently represent approximately 60% of active clients.
Until 2006, its operations were concentrated in Morocco’s Oriental region, an area in the northwest consisting predominately of smaller urban centers and rural areas. Since the second half of 2006, Al Karama has sought to evolve from a regional to a national organization, expanding from the Oriental Region in the Northeast to Tatla-Azila in the Southwest. By the end of 2008, it had established a presence in four of Morocco’s five regions.
Al Karama’s goal is to develop and leverage a brand image as a more socially driven than financially or commercially driven organization that targets the poorest regions in Morocco. To that end, it has developed a portfolio of specialized loan products that are the direct result of client feedback. This has been possible as a result of loan officer-client relationships that are carefully nurtured. Al Karama has also developed a menu of non-financial services that include literacy training, women’s rights, and business development services such as marketing and promotions.
With 16,745 active borrowers and a gross loan portfolio of US$4.8 million, Al Karama has at least doubled in size every two years. Al Karama has been financially self sufficient for more than five years, and maintained Operational Self-Sufficiency (OSS) of 131% and Financial Self-Sufficiency (FSS) of 122% as of December 2008.
Al Karama became a Grameen-Jameel partner in 2006. In 2005, with support from Grameen-Jameel, Al Karama organized and hosted Morocco’s first forum for microfinance organizations and policy-makers to discuss the importance of expanding services to the poor in the neglected Eastern region of the country. More recently, Grameen-Jameel provided a business planning workshop in 2007 that generated its most recent business plan. Al Karama has also participated in SEEP FRAME Tool training and the Grameen Foundation Partner Forum in 2007, as well as partner training in 2008.
Fondation pour le Développement Local et le Partenariat – Micro-crédit (FONDEP): FONDEP was established in Morocco in 1996 by Mouatassim Belghazi, the current President of the institution, as a non-profit organization, or NGO, with the objective of contributing to the economic integration of disadvantaged individuals into the national Moroccan economy through the financing of income-generating micro-projects. FONDEP’s mission is to make credit available to poor people, specifically women. FONDEP’s priority is to use microcredit to help poor women create their own microenterprises and generate income. Products include loans to solidarity groups and individuals.
FONDEP commenced its microcredit activities in 1997 and became registered as an official microcredit association in March 2002 under Morocco’s national microcredit law (18/97). FONDEP is organizationally divided between FONDEP Micro-crédit, focusing exclusively on lending and financial activities, and FONDEP Developpement, which is a separate legal entity focusing on non-financial activities (literacy, training, social promotion).
FONDEP has achieved impressive growth since 2006, increasing outreach by 82% to 138,259 active clients in Q4 08 and more than doubling its gross loan portfolio from $29.0 million in to $66.4 million in Q4 2008. FONDEP received an A rating in 2006 from Microfinanza. It was ranked #5 on the Forbes Top 50 MFIs in 2007 and #68 on the 2008 MIX Global 100 Composite list of top MFIs worldwide.
To date, Grameen-Jameel has provided US $240,000 in direct loans and guarantees totaling US $3.9 million that have generated US $15.0 million in local currency financing. It has also provided training grants, worked with FONDEP to initiate a pilot program in the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI), and provided a partner training in 2008 in which FONDEP participated. In Q4 2008, FONDEP participated in the first Arab Microfinance Investment Symposium in Dubai. www.fondep.com