PlaNet Finance Strategic Seminar

PlaNet Finance held its annual Strategic Seminar December 17-19 2009, where management of the global network of offices gathered for the opening session, addressed by President Jacques Attali.

M. Attali presented some diverse statistics and trends for the assembly to consider against the backdrop of the fight against poverty: by 2020, it is predicted that 6 billion people will be living in urban settings; the financial crisis has had its impacts which have not made the fight against poverty easier; there are now 155 million micro-entrepreneurs needing financial services; and the effects of climate change are most likely to throw a wrench in our efforts to reduce the number of people living at the poverty line, so our efforts must be untiring. As has become something of a tradition in these seminars, he restated the mission of the PlaNet Finance group as: “The pursuit of poverty alleviation through improvement of microfinance consolidation for financial inclusiveness.”

Predictably, 2009 was a tough year for the PlaNet Finance group but the overall annual budget remained stable at around EURO 8.2 million.