Hand in Hand India’s Dr Sankar shares financial inclusion expertise

24 Apr 2013

Dr Kalpana Sankar | CEO Hand In Hand India

The CEO of Hand in Hand India, Dr Kalpana Sankar, was invited to speak at the launch of Papua New Guinea’s Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion (CEFI) on 24 April. The event was inaugurated by the country’s Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill.

Dr Sankar drew on Hand in Hand India’s ten years’ experience in financial inclusion and microcredit in India and beyond.

In the Hand in Hand model for fighting poverty, entrepreneurial business training dovetails with financial inclusion. Over the past ten years, US $183m of business start-up loans have been extended to some of India’s most disadvantaged rural women, enabling them to set up and expand 915,000 businesses. This approach for job and business creation has now been successfully adapted in six other countries in Asia (Afghanistan) and sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe).

CEFI is co-financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the Government of of Papua New Guinea and will drive the national strategy for financial inclusion.

Read more about HiH India’s results in financial inclusion and microcredit on the Hand in Hand India website.