14 Nov 2024
EMW2024 opens with a plenary entitled ‘Empowering Global Change: How Inclusive Finance Will Accelerate the Path to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals’.
Three-day, member-led hybrid conference comprises over 30 sessions across various formats; over 660 attendees from more than 55 countries – over 200 online
Plenaries on ‘Empowering Global Change: How Inclusive Finance Will Accelerate the Path to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals’, ‘Advancing Financial Inclusion of Refugees and Forcibly Displaced People’, and ‘Is Fintech Really the Future?’
Other sessions on AI, youth entrepreneurship, financial abuse, sustainable outcomes management, DFS standards – and many others
Launch of e-MFP publications Advancing Financial Inclusion of Refugees and Forcibly Displaced People, and Members’ Spotlight 2024
European Microfinance Award (EMA) ceremony takes place on Thursday 14th November, 5pm at European Investment Bank
EMW2024 opened Wednesday with a plenary entitled ‘Empowering Global Change: How Inclusive Finance Will Accelerate the Path to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals’. Opening remarks were given by Mr. Georges Ternes, Director for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs - Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defense, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade (MFA), who referred to the ‘pressing challenges’ the world is facing, including the more than 100 million displaced people, a challenge which needs innovation to address: “The focus of this year‘s European Micofinance Week on financial inclusion for refugees and forcibly displaced people highlights a critical and urgent need. Our efforts must evolve to support these families and individuals in building resilience and restoring livelihoods, ensuring dignity in their host communities.
The opening plenary itself was about channeling financial flows through inclusive finance creating significant opportunities to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in emerging markets. But as the speakers noted, two key challenges must be addressed: risk perception and impact measurement, and there is a critical need for de-risking investment mechanisms, as well as for standardizing impact measurement methodologies and improving data availability. To be effective, such solutions must be scalable and accessible to a wide range of stakeholders. Luxembourg’s inclusive finance ecosystem is calling on European stakeholders to collaborate in building common solutions and tools. This initiative aims to unlock new market-driven opportunities for investors and accelerate progress towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
This year, EMW welcomes more than 660 attendees (over 200 of whom are joining online) to over 30 sessions – plenaries, breakouts, closed-door roundtables and Action Group meetings – organised across several thematic streams, including digitalisation, client protection, green inclusive finance, and a particular emphasis on refugee finance with “Advancing Financial Inclusion for Refugees & Forcibly Displaced People” – the topic of the European Microfinance Award 2024. There are over 25 workshops, closed meetings, and open breakout sessions within these broader themes, and these cover topic areas ranging from outcomes and impact, AI, financial health, governance, financial abuse, mutual health insurance, and biodiversity finance – among others.
There are many networking slots for attendees to either mingle over food and drink, or to meet in small groups in a more private context. In addition, there are several Action Group (AG) meetings, plus some closed, invitation only sessions, breakfast events, networking sessions, and a conference platform and app for both in-person and remote attendees to use.
This afternoon will see the second plenary of the conference, on ‘Advancing Financial Inclusion for Refugees & Forcibly Displaced People’, the topic of the European Microfinance Award 2024. As always, EMW is the culmination of a year-long evaluation and knowledge creation process with the announcement of the winner, with the €100,000 prize awarded by the MFA – and €10,000 to each of the two runners-up.
The Award this year has sought to seeks to highlight organisations ‘active in financial inclusion that help forcibly displaced people build resilience, restore livelihoods, and live with dignity in host communities’, and e-MFP is launching new publications that collate the insights and best practice from this Award: the first is Advancing Financial Inclusion for Refugees & Forcibly Displaced People (which includes theoretical and practical examples, including case studies of ten EMA semi-finalists) and also the e-MFP Members’ Spotlight 2024, which presents what 14 different e-MFP members have been doing in this field.
This evening is the EMA2024 Award Ceremony at the European Investment Bank. The ceremony will involve films profiling the three finalists - Al Majmoua from Lebanon, FATEN from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and RUFI from Uganda, news of the EMA2023 winner - Yikri from Burkina Faso - on the topic of ‘Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition, an address by Mr Xavier Bettel, the Luxembourg Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, a keynote speech by Ms. Kelly Clements, Deputy High Commissioner of the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, and an address and announcement of the EMA2024 winner by HRH the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, President of the High Jury.
Friday will see another full range of sessions, concluding with the Catapult ‘Inclusion Africa 2024’ pitch session, and a closing plenary entitled “Is Fintech really the future?”