CARIB CAP: Before and after
The title of this paper, “CARIB CAP Before and After” refers to the situation of the microfinance industry in the English speaking Caribbean at the beginning and at the end of the Project known as CARIB CAP, the Caribbean Microfinance Capacity Building Project. This US$ 3 million Project started at the end of 2008 and is being funded by the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the Inter American Development Bank, the European Commission through its EU/ACP Project and the Caribbean Development Bank. The program is due to end mid 2011. For more information: www.caribcapmicrofinance.com. The Project Management Unit is a joint undertaking of Development Options Limited. (Jamaica) and Triodos Facet BV (The Netherlands).
The title sounds somewhat pretentious. Predicting “what will be” after a Project always is difficult. But in this case even the “before” is not easy to describe. In a sector characterized worldwide by a high density of information, knowledge exchange and transparency, there is surprisingly little information about the microfinance industry in this part of the world. The MIX market, featuring information about almost 1,500 MFIs including MFIs from countries like Tajikistan and Samoa, contains information about no more than five MFIs of the region. Of these five, only one provides the MIX with information on a regular basis1. The Dominican Republic alone scores better with the MIX than the whole English speaking Caribbean. Still we start this paper with an overview of where the microfinance industry in the region stands now. We then take a look into the future as seen by the practitioners: what is going to happen in the next three years in terms of growth, changes in the market, innovations and needs in terms of funding and human resources. We finalize with a reference to the challenges for the Carib Cap Project.
