Microloans to Thieves and Other Revolutionary Acts That Demand Championing

Microloans to Thieves and

Other Revolutionary Acts That Demand Championing

The next Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN) meeting will be Wednesday, July 8, 2009 and will feature Sam Daley-Harris, Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign.

Sam Daley-Harris

On January 26, 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Jamii Bora Founder Ingrid Munro, and Microcredit Summit Campaign Director Sam Daley-Harris came together to make a momentous announcement: in 2007 the Microcredit Summit Campaign had surpassed its goal of reaching 100 million of the world’s poorest families.  The largest global microfinance network, the Campaign had launched the goal at its inaugural meeting in 1997.  Now the Campaign has been extended to 2015 and more bold goals set.  The Campaign measures progress toward its goals in the State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report and convenes regularly.  

When polled about potential subjects for the next gathering, the Latin America – Caribbean Microcredit Summit to be held in Colombia in June 2009, microfinance leaders from Latin America overwhelmingly  favored the topic “Breaking the Rules of Microfinance to End Poverty: Innovations from Around the World.”  At this SVMN meeting, Director Sam Daley-Harris will discuss the Microcredit Summit Campaign’s recent achievements, next steps, and commitment to accelerating awareness and adoption of the most cutting edge innovations.  His talk will include information on the creative practices of Kenyan microfinance institution Jamii Bora – from successfully making loans to beggars, thieves, and prostitutes to building a new town that allows slum dwellers to move into new homes and a better life.

Register early!  Online registration closes the morning of the event.  At-the-door admission is $10 more.

Speaker Bio:

Sam Daley-Harris, Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign

Sam Daley-Harris is founder of RESULTS, a grassroots lobbying organization that seeks to create the political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty.  He is also the founder of RESULTS Educational Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to mass educational strategies to generate the public will to end world hunger and the worst aspects of poverty.  2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus said the following about both organizations, “no other organization has been as critical a partner in seeing to it that microcredit is used as a tool to eradicate poverty and empower women than RESULTS and RESULTS Educational Fund's Microcredit Summit Campaign.”

RESULTS Educational Fund organized the February 1997 Microcredit Summit held in Washington, D.C.  The Summitlaunched a nine-year campaign to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families, especially the women of those families, with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the end of 2005.  The goal was reached in 2007, just over one year late.  

Phase II of the campaign was launched at the Global Microcredit Summit 2006, attended by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the President of Honduras, the Queen of Spain, Muhammad Yunus and 2,200 delegates from 112 countries. Phase II of the campaign is designed to help boost the UN’s Millennium Development Goals for 2015 and includes two of its own new goals: 1) reaching 175 million of the world’s poorest and 2) ensuring that 100 million families rise out of $1 a day poverty, lifting half a billion people out of extreme poverty.

Mr. Daley-Harris is leading the Microcredit Summit Campaign in its work to partner with the 20 largest microfinance institutions (MFI’s) to ensure the movement out of poverty of their poorest clients.

Mr. Daley-Harris is an esteemed recipient of the first Susan M. Davis Lifetime Achievement Award and is the author of the book Reclaiming Our Democracy: Healing the Break Between People and Government, about which President Jimmy Carter said, "[Daley-Harris] provides a road map for global involvement in planning a better future." Mr. Daley-Harris has also edited two cutting-edge publications on microfinance: Pathways Out of Poverty: Innovations in Microfinance for the Poorest Families and More Pathways Out of Poverty.  In 1995, he received The Temple Award for Creative Altruism from the Institute of Noetic Sciences and, in 1997, he received the Caring Award from the Caring Institute.  In 2003 Daley-Harris received the Warner Woodworth Humanitarian Service Award from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University.

Mr. Daley-Harris lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife Shannon, who is a consultant with the Religious Affairs Division of the Children's Defense Fund.  Their son Micah was born in May 1998 and daughter Sophie was born in May 2001.