Monday, March 31, 2008

BOOK LAUNCH: "Financing Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises through Financial Intermediaries" on April 11 at 10:00 am in IFC Auditorium

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Invite you to

a Panel Discussion and Launch of the IEG Study on

Financing Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises through Financial Intermediaries

FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2008
10 am - 12 pm
IFC Auditorium
2121 Pennsylvania Avenue (Entrance on K Street)


For non Bank staff, please RSVP to infoshopevents@worldbank.org
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| (Embedded image moved |
| to file: pic09961.jpg) The Independent Evaluation Group |
| brings together evaluators, |
| financiers, practitioners, and a |
| microfinance bank to talk about |
| micro, small, and medium |
| enterprises (MSMEs) in the |
| developing world. |
| |
| MSMEs constitute the bulk of the |
| private sector in most developing |
| countries and can contribute |
| significantly to economic growth, |
| employment creation, and poverty |
| reduction. However, limited access |
| to finance has often constrained |
| their development, particularly in |
| frontier countries (high-risk or |
| low-income). |
| |
| Supporting the MSMEs through |
| financial intermediaries in these |
| countries has been a strategic |
| priority for IFC, and the current |
| IEG study examines the |
| effectiveness of these strategies |
| during the period of 1994- 2006. |
| |
| For more information, please |
| visit: http://www.ifc.org/ieg

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| |
| |
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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Vinod Thomas
Director General, Evaluation
Independent Evaluation Group, The World Bank Group
Mr. Thomas is the Director-General of the Independent Evaluation
Group (IEG) at the World Bank Group. His previous positions include
Country Director for Brazil, Vice President of the World Bank
Institute (WBI), and Chief Economist for the World Bank in the East
Asia and Pacific Region. In addition, he was the staff Director for
the 1991 World Development Report entitled The Challenge of
Development.

CHAIR
Marvin Taylor-Dormond
Director, Independent Evaluation Group-IFC
Mr. Taylor-Dormond is the Director of the Independent Evaluation
Group at IFC (IEG-IFC). Mr. Taylor-Dormond joined IEG-IFC after a
successful career in the Central American Bank of Economic
Integration in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where he held positions such
as Controller (Independent Oversight and Evaluation Authority),
Executive Vice President and most recently, Chief Economist and
Chief Evaluation. He also served as Vice-Minister of Finance for the
Republic of Costa Rica, his native country.

PANELISTS
Amitava Banerjee
Manager, Independent Evaluation Group -IFC
Mr. Banerjee joined the World Bank Group in 1979 through the Young
Professionals Program. He has experience as an Investment Officer
in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and in Advisory Services in the
Pacific. In 1998, at the start of the Asian crisis, he was appointed
Regional Manager for Indonesia and Malaysia and posted to Jakarta,
Indonesia. He returned to Headquarters in 2002 as Manager, Strategy
and Coordination for the East Asia and Pacific Department.

James Scriven
Director, Global Financial Markets Group, IFC
Mr. Scriven is Director of Operations for Latin America and the
Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa regions at IFC?s Global Financial
Markets Department. He joined IFC in April 2002 and was responsible
for the restructuring efforts in the Argentine financial sector.
Since then, he has held several positions in the Global Financial
Markets Department prior to his current assignment.

Elizabeth Littlefield
Director, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)
Ms. Littlefield is one of the World Bank's senior spokespeople on
microfinance. She is the Chief Executive Officer of the Consultative
Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a multi-donor organization created
to help build a large-scale permanent microfinance industry
providing flexible, high-quality financial services on a sustainable
basis to the poor. Prior to joining CGAP in 1999, Ms. Littlefield
was the Managing Director in charge of J.P. Morgan's financing
business in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, Central Asia,
Middle East and Africa. She has served on the executive board of
several organizations, including Women's World Banking, Profund, and
Africa International Financial Holdings.

Javier Fernández Cueto
Director of Strategy and New Business,
Banco Compartamos, Mexico
Before joining Compartamos in 1998, Mr. Fernández-Cueto worked in
American Express as manager for Latin American credit operations.
Upon joining Compartamos, he headed the development of urban
operations in Mexico City, and then became responsible for
transforming Compartamos from an NGO into a microfinance
institution. In 2005, he headed the transformation process into a
bank; and in 2007, he participated in the processes for Compartamos?
initial public offering. Mr. Fernández-Cueto is currently the
Strategy and New Businesses Managing Director for Compartamos
responsible for the aligning and fulfillment of Compartamos?
strategy as well as developing new businesses opportunities.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
About IEG-IFC
The Independent Evaluation Group at IFC (IEG-IFC) independently
evaluates IFC's operations, including its investment activities and
advisory services operations with particular attention to
accountability - IFC's achievement of its objectives for private
sector development, and learning - identification and dissemination
of lessons and findings that can be operationalized by IFC staff and
others involved or interested in sustainable private sector
development.
For more information, visit: http://www.ifc.org/ieg

About the InfoShop
The InfoShop is the public information center of the World Bank and
serves as a forum for substantial debate on international
development. Our extensive events program consists of more than 250
events over the past two years and has hosted many internationally
recognized speakers including Queen Noor, Francis Fukuyama, Jeffrey
Sachs, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Friedman, and Carly
Fiorina. The InfoShop functions as the only publicly accessible
space at headquarters and provides internal and external audiences
with over 15,000 titles published by the World Bank, international
organizations, and other publishers on development issues.
For more information, visit: www.worldbank.org/infoshop

Comments about the events program:

http://go.worldbank.org/TDG9T8O9K0

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