Micro-credit gets a helping hand in Africa

from the Economic Times

Pinsoumane Kante is proud of his welding shop in Missira, Senegal. After working with his father, he established a workshop to cash in on the demand for farm equipment in the region. He took two micro-credit loans of $500 each, using the money to set up the workshop and buy machinery he needed to weld farm instruments. Now, he has four employees. With his profits, he built a house for his family and bought a TV. He has also managed a second income by using a slice of the money to buy chickens and goats.

Ndeye Mboup is a vendor in Dakar. She observed foreign merchants buying Senegalese dresses at the market to sell back home. She took a $200 loan to travel to neighbouring countries to sell them. With the profits she paid back her loan and moved on to selling perfume. Today, she is able to provide good education to her children.

These are just a few examples of self-efficiency; many more lives are yet to benefit from the micro-credit programme launched by Italian fashion house Benetton. The Benetton Group, in partnership with Africa’s best-known singer Youssou N’Dour, recently unveiled a new global communication campaign in favour of micro-credit in Senegal called Africa Works (supporting and promoting Africa for Africans). The campaign promotes the Birima micro-credit programme, a co-operative credit society founded by Youssou N’Dour that offers financial services for SMEs, craftspeople, professionals and artists to help them start and independently develop their business. The programme will also receive financial support from Benetton.

“We chose to support and promote this important project as unlike traditional acts of solidarity, it offers tangible support to small local entrepreneurs through the efficient use of micro-credit. Precisely because it is based on entrepreneurial talent, hard work, optimism and interest of the future, this project effectively promotes the new face of Africa,” said Benetton Group executive deputy chairman Alessandro Benetton.

About the micro-credit programme that can bring about a change in the lives of people in Africa, Youssou N’Dour said: “My personal experience led me to realise that when a loan, however small, is used to develop an idea or realise a project, it is an effective way of fighting poverty. This is why everybody must understand the value of micro-credit. Africa doesn’t want charity, it wants repayable subsidised loans.”

Africa Works - the slogan of the campaign developed by Fabrica (Benetton’s communication research centre) - will appear on billboards and in the media from February. It features Senegalese workers who have used micro loans to start small, productive businesses. Photographer James Mollison has shot people with tools of their trade against a neutral background.

Starting from Dakar, the Africa Works campaign (launched on February 13), will also feature during Youssou N’Dour’s world tour, especially in his concert at Paris Bercy on April 5.